Types Of Car Insurance Deductibles And How To Avoid Paying Them

Your car’s insurance policy can be helpful in case you meet an accident. To be an aware policy buyer, you need to know about a lot of terms and be very sure of what actually do you want your insurance policy to deliver. In today’s featured, we are gonna talk about one such insurance term. Have you ever heard about deductibles? Here we will talk about what a deductible is and if you really need to pay it.

What is a car insurance deductible?

Deductible – as the name suggests is something that will be deducted from what the insurer pays against your insurance claim. Your car insurance deductible is an agreement between you and the insurer. This cost-sharing arrangement states the share that you need to pay in case of an insurance claim.

Read 15 Popular Car Insurance Terminologies That You Should Know!

Putting this in simple words if you make a claim of Rs.10,000; your insurer will not pay the whole amount (in most cases). Your deductible is calculated on the depreciation and in the case above, say your deductible is calculated to be INR 1,000, you will pay the deductible while the insurer will ay the rest.

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That’s not all. There is more to car insurance deductibles that you need to know. Let’s now head to the types of car insurance deductibles. This will help you have more clarity on the concept.

• Compulsory Car Insurance Deductibles
  

  

  As the name suggests, this is the compulsory part of the deductibles that you need to pay. IRDAI has set the amount to Rs.1,000 for four-wheelers before 1500cc and Rs.2000 for those above 1500cc. The insurer might increase the compulsory deductible in case your car is old and where there is a higher risk of claims for cars with higher cubic capacities. This can be high in situations where the insurer can expect high chances of a claim being made. The compulsory deductibles don’t affect your insurance premium in any manner because they are mandatory and don’t play any role in premium calculation.

• Voluntary Car Insurance Deductibles
  

  

  Voluntary- you are the one who chooses how much you will pay. If you go for a higher voluntary deductible, you can get discounts on the premium. This is because you are telling the insurer that you will pay a major part in your claim in case of an accident so the insurer won’t hesitate in providing you with a discount on your premium because they are getting a guarantee of paying less in case of an accident. Simple calculations, lower the claim they have to settle, lower will be the premium.

How to avoid paying car insurance deductibles?

Till the time your deductible amount is in your budget, you should never hesitate to pay it. Even if it’s in your budget, you should evaluate if it’s even worth it.  If your car has got cosmetic damage and is still working fine in terms of functionality, you should always give a second thought before making a claim. Let’s now have a look at how you can avoid paying car insurance deductibles.

Read 5 Reasons Why You Should Partner With GoMechanic For Insurance Claims!

• Choose GoMechanic
  

  

  Different people will give you different opinions here. Waiving off the deductibles isn’t an illegal practice. To overcome all the hassle of asking your mechanic for this, you can simply choose GoMechanic for your car insurance claims and get your deductibles waived off without any questions. Just keep in mind that there are certain limits up to which we can waive your deductibles and these will be decided once we go through your car’s policy and have a glance at the amount of repair required. Here we can also provide you with a monthly payment method so that you are not overburdened by your car repair costs.

• Study your insurance policy
  

  

  As an aware customer, you should know what your policy mentions. Just have a look at your policy and be aware if you need to pay the deductibles up front. By this, we mean that if you have a deductible of INR 1000 in a claim of INR 10,000, your insurer will pay the workshop the amount they are entitled to pay whereas you can settle the rest for by yourself. Be clear about this face and keep your deductible payments sorted.

• Lower your deductibles beforehand
  

  

  No one knows what’s coming. You may be attracted to an offer where the insurer might lower your premium a bit if you agree on the higher voluntary deductible. Don’t fall for this! This is because the decrease in the premium will be a very small amount in comparison to what you will need to pay as a deductible in case you meet an accident! Yes, don’t risk a huge amount of money just to save a few hundred today.

   

This was all about the types of car insurance deductibles and how you can avoid them. Terms like deductibles are meant to be understood very carefully so that you don’t end up paying more unnecessarily in case of a claim. Getting and claiming car insurance can be really tricky if you don’t have the correct piece of advice. GoMechanic is here to help you out with absolutely everything you need! Just leave your thoughts in the comments section below.