Excess protection is now available on both single and multi vehicle policies from Heritage, offering reimbursement when you pay your excess due to a car insurance claim.

Even the most careful drivers may find themselves having to make a claim at some point. Bad luck can strike anyone, and comes in many forms from badly placed bollards to critters crossing country roads – and everything in between.

Car insurance is there to cover the cost of these claims, but the policy excess means you still end up paying out of pocket.

Excess protection is a type of ‘add-on’ insurance that can be added to your main vehicle cover, and it reimburses your excess if you need to make a claim. It gets paid out after your claim has been settled.

If you have insurance with us, you could benefit from this cover. Here’s why.

Excess protection is designed for fault claims – but you can claim for non-fault, too

You only usually pay your excess in a fault claim situation. This is where your insurer is liable for paying out on damage.

However, if your claim is non-fault or it’s a case of shared liability, you can still claim on your excess protection cover if your insurer hasn’t recovered the money from the third party within 6 months of the incident.

Not sure what the difference is between a fault claim and a non-fault claim? We’ve got a helpful guide here.

Excess protection is especially helpful for high-value classics

While some car insurance policies will give you an excess as low as £100, this is increasingly rare. If you have a valuable classic worth £30k or more, or multiple vehicles, you could be looking at an excess of £500, £750 or even higher.

If you do need to claim on insurance for your valuable vehicle, it’s a sudden and significant cost. With excess protection, that money goes back to you once the claim is settled.

Multi vehicle excess protection can cover up to 10 vehicles

If you’re the proud owner of a car collection, multi vehicle excess protection is a great way to cover more of those cars in one go.

That means that if you have a claim in the April with one vehicle, and another valid claim in July on another vehicle, they’re both covered so long as they’re on the same multi car policy with us.

Of course, in an ideal world you won’t have a reason to make a claim on your car insurance. If you do, then with excess protection you’ve got cover that can reimburse the excess for both.

You can claim up to £3,000 in a year

For a single vehicle, excess protection with Heritage caps out at a £1,000 annual claims limit. This is because it is unlikely that your excess would be higher than £1000, and we want to make sure you’re only paying for the cover you need – and not overpaying for cover you don’t.

For a multiple vehicle policy, the aggregate limit is £3,000. This is because you’re more likely to have higher excess for multiple vehicles.

Whatever your situation is, with excess protection you can be secure in knowing you have the cover you need if you do need to pay out on a claim.