What is an Excess Waiver or Excess Buster?

What is an excess waiver you may well ask?

Here are some points About what is an excess waiver: 

  • It is the first payable amount following claim payout or settlement
  • The clause promotes responsibility, better guardianship of valuables and small, petty claim prevention
  • You pay excess amounts directly to insurance providers.
  • A cash claim settlement pays the excess from the final settlement amount.
  • For accidents where the blame is not yours, the excess is still chargeable. However, your insurance provider will attempt to recover it from the guilty person.
  • The meaning of ‘voluntary’ excess is paying more excess for a lower monthly premium.
  • Most insurers charge proportionate excess, whereby a fixed percentage comes from the final claim amount.
  • What is an excess waiverVarious insurers charge different excess depending on the type of claim, i.e. car accident vs. car theft.
  •  Some insurers charge additional excess, apart from the regular, to those taking insurance for the first time. Or those filing claims within the initial three months of buying a policy.
  • Some people pay a proportionate excess. This makes you liable for the payment of a fixed percentage of the final claim amount. Depending on the insurer, this can range between five and ten percent of total damages.

 

What is an Excess Waiver Continued

In addition to the usual excess payable to an insurer, drivers who fall under a particular category pay additional excess amounts. They are:

  • People with licenses that are not 08/B/EB
  • A person without previous insurance
  • A driver with a learner’s license only
  • Drivers who claim within three months of policy purchase
  • Motorists who claim for similar incidents within a twelve-month time frame
  • The people whose licenses are two years old or less
  • Incidences where the regular driver and the incident driver are not the same
  • Drivers involved in accidents that occur outside South Africa

 

Drivers involved in events that occur between midnight and five a.m. also pay an additional excess. For example, if someone else drives your car and an accident occurs, you may be liable for additional excess, up to the tune of R3 600.

It is possible that your excess amount may depend on your claim’s nature. Excess amounts vary from claim to claim.

This means the excess payable for a stolen car claim may be different from that of an accident claim.

Excess can Range over a broad area of Insurance

Different excess may also apply for a un-garaged car at the time of it being stolen or damaged. Some insurers encourage preventative measures among their clients to negate damage to possessions.

With windscreen damage, just the windscreen excess is liable and not the vehicle excess, which is most likely much lower.

In a claim for vehicular as well as windshield damage, only the higher of the two is charged, and not the combined excesses. In a case like this, only the vehicle excess applies.

Your car insurance quote is here.
Act now by completing and sending the form on this page.

 

All info was correct at time of publishing November 13, 2018