Comprehensive Car Insurance

Most car owners need comprehensive car insurance. Indeed, if your car has outstanding finance, your finance company will insist that you insure it fully comprehensively.

Comprehensive Insurance covers you for damage to your own vehicle, irrespective

of who caused the accident, and, if the accident was your fault, damage you cause to other vehicles or property. The policy will also meet any third party personal injury claims, including your passengers. Most comprehensive policies also give the driver a death benefit (usually around £15,000 - but please check your insurance policy) and a loss of limb benefit.

But don't assume that you are covered for everything. If you look carefully into your comprehensive policy, you'll probably find some significant exclusions.

Under the contract with your insurer, you have some significant responsibilities. For example, you have a duty to take reasonable care of the car when it's being used. This means that when you park your car, you must lock it and keep the keys safe. If you left your keys on a restaurant table and the keys and car disappear, the insurance company would probably refuse your claim on the grounds that you failed to take reasonable care. So please, take care!

Car Insurance policies also exclude the repair costs for mechanical breakdown, service and MoT costs. In fact, all wear and tear costs are uninsured unless you have a specific mechanical breakdown policy – and these are an entirely different type of insurance policy.

The only exception to this are windscreen claims. Insurance for damaged windscreens is dealt with in a different manner to other accidental damage. They are usually insured as an optional extra to your car insurance policy. They also have a separate excess fee as the potential damage is strictly limited to the replacement cost of the windscreen.