In what we believe is genuinely a UK first for GAP insurance, we’re formally announcing today that if you buy a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5-year Invoice or Replacement GAP insurance policy from us, when that policy approaches expiry we’ll give you the option of extending/renewing the policy for another one or in some cases two years.
We’ll even allow you to increase your policy Claim Limit at the point of renewal if it’s deemed that the originally purchased Claim Limit is not likely to be sufficient for the additional cover period!
How is this different to policies offered elsewhere?
Elsewhere, at the point your 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 year GAP insurance policy expires, the highest level of GAP insurance cover you can currently get for the same vehicle, would be a form of “Agreed Value GAP Insurance” which in a nutshell, “secures” the already-depreciated-value of your vehicle at the time you buy the new policy.
What we offer, is the ability to continue with a policy on an Invoice or Replacement GAP insurance basis which, in the event of your vehicle being declared a Total Loss (aka “written off”), works as follows:
Revive Invoice GAP insurance – pays the difference between your Motor Insurance payout and the greater of either, the original invoice price you paid to put your vehicle on the road OR (if applicable) the finance agreement settlement figure at the time of claim.
Revive Replacement GAP insurance – If the original vehicle was purchased brand-new, this policy pays the difference between your Motor Insurance payout and the cost of replacing the vehicle New-For-Old at the time of claim. If the original vehicle was not brand new, Revive Replacement GAP insurance pays the difference between your Motor Insurance payout and the cost of the replacing the vehicle at the time of claim, with one of the same Make, Model, Age, Mileage and condition that your original vehicle was, when you bought it – even if the new vehicle costs more than you paid for your original vehicle! If an equivalent vehicle on which to calculate the cost of replacement is not available at the time of claim, the cost of the replacement vehicle will be limited to 110% of the price you bought the original vehicle for.
What’s more, is that if you’re not entirely sure that you’re going to keep the vehicle for the whole of the new policy duration, you don’t need to worry because our usual great cancellation conditions apply. This means that if you cancel the policy within the first 30 days you’ll get a full refund (assuming no claim has been made) and then after 30 days you can still cancel at any time, then claim a pro-rata rebate of unused premium and then either use that rebate against the cost of a new policy on a new vehicle (no cancellation or transfer fees will apply) or you can have the balance refunded (a £40 cancellation fee will apply).
Cards on the table
As some of you will already know, we’ve been offering this renewal facility since August 2013. However we’ve been doing so quietly, with existing policyholders as their policies have approached expiry. We kept it quiet because we wanted to gauge how much interest there was in such a facility before giving the game away and making our competitors aware of what we were doing.
We’re pleased to report that levels of interest in the ability to renew a GAP insurance policy have been far greater than we ever expected and we feel now is the time to formally announce that we can do this. However rather than sticking with the mundane insurance-term of “renewal” (we’re a bit more exciting than that!) we’re calling it “Revive” because after all, we’re giving our policyholder’s the ability to Revive their existing GAP insurance policies as they approach the end of their term – actually, that’s a good point… we know that sometimes life gets in the way and deadlines can be missed, so, demonstrating our flexibility, whilst ideally you should extend a policy before it expires (to avoid any break in cover) we’ll permit you to purchase the additional cover up to 15 days after your existing policy has expired.
Biggest Shake-up?
Is this the biggest shake-up of the UK’s GAP insurance market to-date? Well… when we first set out to offer this, we thought it could be. Then we had another idea and we’ve been working on that for a while too. Now that, that really is a huge change to the UK’s GAP insurance market and more details will be announced very, soon!
For more information about the ability to Revive an expiring GAP insurance policy see: GAPinsurance.co.uk/revive