Ever gone onto a website and got a premium that was so low you thought it must be a mistake? Well, the first thing to do is check your excess.

Excess is the amount you have to shell out yourself when you have a claim. In other words, if the claim is for £500, an excess of £150 would mean the insurance company only give you £350. It’s simple really, but Insurers like to make excess complicated – here’s how…

First they have “compulsory excess” and “voluntary excess” – Compulsory is set at a certain figure for the whole policy, often £50 for example. Voluntary Excess, however, is an extra amount you can choose – this makes your premium go down but means you have to pay more when you have a claim.

Let’s say you have a compulsory excess of £50 and a voluntary excess of £150. When you crash into a tree that means you have to pay £200 toward the cost of fixing your car. By getting you to agree this, insurance companies can cut their claims costs dramatically.

So, who do you think chooses your voluntary excess? Well, it’s you of course but when you go to websites they set that as a default to a high figure, just so you see a nice low premium at the end of the quote.

That’s not so bad, but when you go to a price comparison website you sometime find they change your excess after you get your quote, just to keep the price low!!!

This is one of the great insurance dodges!

The other thing to watch is you may have a different excess on different parts of the policy. Your windscreen cover, for example, or your legal expenses. It’s best to keep your eyes peeled when you’re looking for this particular loophole!