Does anybody have the "asset protection"?

Everybody who buys a vehicle should consider a GAP policy; and if we didn't live in a society of litigation we wouldn't focus on it so much.

There was a huge influx of people over the last couple of years successfully suing dealers for not even offering or letting the customer know of GAP policies.

Hence the SODAN which every single new car buyer HAS to sign. (Statement Of Demands And Needs)
 
I'm interested to know who underwrites the Audi policy. In my experience, they only sell on the rights to use the Audi brand to another company.

An Audi salesman pushed Audi Insurance with my mother many years ago. She naively fell for the sales pitch. When it came to a claim, the service was appalling and Audi UK didn't want to know or attempt to sort the issues. At the time, it was underwritten by Equity Redstar I believe.

My guess is the GAP insurance would be similar.
 
Everybody who buys a vehicle should consider a GAP policy; and if we didn't live in a society of litigation we wouldn't focus on it so much.

There was a huge influx of people over the last couple of years successfully suing dealers for not even offering or letting the customer know of GAP policies.

Hence the SODAN which every single new car buyer HAS to sign. (Statement Of Demands And Needs)

I don't have any issue with this.... advising the customer of its existence. However, my own experience over numerous new cars has been similar to the 'extended warranty' scams when you purchase any new electrical item. The salesman wants to snare you on the spot for it. Classic pressure selling.

The salesperson should also be required to tell the customer that other companies do similar policies which may well be cheaper.
 
Depreciation is all fine, but if you want to use your car for a long time (and accept that the biggest bunch of depreciation comes in the first part of ownership), and suddenly your car is written off 2 weeks after collection rather than the 10 years you wanted to keep it for, you are stuffed. Doesn't always work out how you planned it.
Don't see as your stuffed, more maybe £5000 down. So maybe the £215 is money well spent.
Have you heard of anybody that's made a claim from their gap ins?
 
Everybody who buys a vehicle should consider a GAP policy; and if we didn't live in a society of litigation we wouldn't focus on it so much.

There was a huge influx of people over the last couple of years successfully suing dealers for not even offering or letting the customer know of GAP policies.

Hence the SODAN which every single new car buyer HAS to sign. (Statement Of Demands And Needs)

I would love to see, for any insurance product, the amount of money that goes towards the provision of the cover and the amount paid as commission to the salesman. I suspect here we have someone with a vested interest and relatively high commission rate they are trying to protect, and maybe ethically they should hae declared there vested interest within their first post within this thread.
 
Interesting how my conduct on here is a concern; but talking to a call centre who don't give a rats **** isn't a concern when it comes to saving a couple of hundred quid, after you've had an accident and are trying to potentially claim back up to £20,000.

Funny world isn't it.
Why on earth would you be claiming £20,000 on a less than £30,000 car, surely your motor ins is covering most of the purchase cost of the car and it's just the difference Gap ins covers. Will probably have to look into this Gap insurance!
 
I don't have any issue with this.... advising the customer of its existence. However, my own experience over numerous new cars has been similar to the 'extended warranty' scams when you purchase any new electrical item. The salesman wants to snare you on the spot for it. Classic pressure selling.

The salesperson should also be required to tell the customer that other companies do similar policies which may well be cheaper.

Certainly; I very rarely sign up customers to GAP on the day.

I can't speak for all salesmen but my process is generally -

  1. Signed order form
  2. Handover a folder, introduce to GAP insurance, Diamondbrite paintwork protection and provide a service plan quote. Tell the customer to read through the pack and read through the products.
  3. Customer comes in roughly a week later to sign finance docs, CORDS etc. Introduce to business manager to do SODAN, SECCI and PCCI at the time of finance docs signing.
  4. Customer comes in for handover, show them the vehicle and check it is clean, undamaged and to their expectations.

At this point I then ask the customer if they have read through the GAP insurance leaflet they were given at the time of order, and ask them if they would like to proceed with the GAP insurance or if they had any further questions.

I'm not going to lie; I do my "sale" of the GAP insurance at this point because the customers emotions are at their highest. They have just seen their pride and joy as a totally brand new car, and they will be more inclined to keep it that way and protect their investment at this point. From a "sales" point of view this is a bit clever; HOWEVER this is in my opinion the best time to sell GAP insurance because the customer has also had "reasonable" (SODAN's words, not mine!) time to assess their own personal needs for the insurance policy as well as research the pricing and the alternative cover provided.

If they haven't researched it then they aren't really likely to be interested in the product for whatever reason. But I have made them aware and given them the option to do so.

If they buy my companies endorsed GAP insurance then brilliant; if they source it elsewhere then great. But I would rather they were covered than I earn £20 for selling them a GAP insurance they didn't want.

I'm not a car salesman for profit, I'm a car salesman because I am an enthusiast. So you can rely on my opinion being unbiased.

As far as salesmen go, I am far from pushy. Maybe too easy going, because I always believe that a customer chooses to buy something. And if they don't like it, nothing I can say is going to change their mind into spending five figures on a new car...
 
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I would love to see, for any insurance product, the amount of money that goes towards the provision of the cover and the amount paid as commission to the salesman. I suspect here we have someone with a vested interest and relatively high commission rate they are trying to protect, and maybe ethically they should hae declared there vested interest within their first post within this thread.

As I said earlier, under the FCA take over of what was the FSA last month insurance and finance companies are legally required to disclose any finance or insurance commission if directly asked by the customer.

If I sell a GAP policy I as a salesman earn £20 before tax, and my company earns £25. So not a massive amount of money in reality.

As the cost of the policy and the level of cover given goes up the company will earn more proportionally however I have never known a salesman commission to increase with the price of the policy.
 
As I said earlier, under the FCA take over of what was the FSA last month insurance and finance companies are legally required to disclose any finance or insurance commission if directly asked by the customer.

A move in the right direction but it assumes Joe Public know there rights, would have been far better if the regulations stated the breakdown of the costs must be provided at time of quotation. If only the financial industry were more transparent in there workings and dealings rather than only doing the bear minimum.
 
Word.

Basically the FSA to the FCA is to increase professionalism and transparency within the industry; so I am sure we will see some big improvements in the next few years.

I'd rather it was like that, I hate customers thinking I'm trying to get one over on them :(
 
Apologies for stating my opinion as 'fact', obviously my incorrect phrase hit a nerve.

Of course this is all opinions, that's what forums are for. Just to add some more info to topic, I took my ALA quote along to the dealer to compare the terms and conditions (as I couldn't see the difference). I then asked the dealer what was the benefit in taking the Audi package because I would genuinely have liked to keep it all contained as one package deal from Audi.

He could only tell me that it was 'Audi approved'. Naturally my wallet fell open at that point and I couldn't give him my money fast enough for this clearly superior product.

Thanks for the heads up on some of the ALA issues around delaying paying up, I will bear it in mind. At the end of the day my opinion was that the Audi gap insurance may have provided slightly better service in the event of a claim, but it wasn't worth 3x the price of the ALA price. Your mileage may vary.....
 
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I'm yet to see an authorised GAP insurance salesman do a full analysis of depreciation vs outstanding finance. Something I consider an important part of the decision to buy GAP insurance or not.
 
I do, you're clearly so price led that you are incapable of understanding the benefits of a more expensive policy. And as such are imparting your opinion on somebody as though it is fact.

And seeing as you are unaccredited what you are doing is actually illegal; as you are not of professional competence to advise about insurance policies...But I'll happily let that slip, it is a forum after all.

I guess you new 8V boys have got so much money that waiting 6 weeks for potentially £20,000 of your money and losing one of your cars isn't so much of an issue. Wish I was that rich :(
You do seem to talk a load of nonsense. Opinions are being expressed here, nothing more. Illegal my ***.

At least the opinions expressed here are generally unbiased, unlike yours it seems.
 
As its Father's Day and as I have not got my car yet to happily go out and about hapilly driving about in and following last nights spat of posts on GAP insurance I decided to ask myself two questions.

Do I want it?
and if I do am I getting value for money?


I will declare my vested interest here, I am buying a new car but I am not in the financial industry so not got any financial incentive for promoting anything...oh and by the way don't take this as any form of financial advice this is just my personal insight on what I might do.....

Do I want it....... 2 millions cars sold per year and there are 50000 insurance write offs per year, the vast majority I guess are older than 3 years old so assume 10% or 50000 of the 6000000 under three year old cars per year so less than 1% chance it will be me but if it is then I am likely to get an average payout of £6000 and if I can get the cover for under 1% of the car value ( close to cost of interior light pack) then it might be worthwhile-1% cost to protect a 1% risk


Is it value for money.... Assuring an average cost of £250 to get cover and assuming 10% of cars have gap insurance the market is worth £50M and cost of payouts I reckon is £30M. ( I have my calculations if anyone is interested and references for the figures inhale used) so the industry makes £20m per annum and on the basis that 20000 cars(10% of sales) have cover I reckon the insurance industry is making £100 per GAP insurance sale......or 40% commission which is a little high in my bookd

in summary value is marginal but I don't think we are getting great value
 
Nope, point well made

But that's the insurance industry and it is difficult to generalize.

In your personal circumstance you need to compare costs to risk and calculate from there.

I have paid over £10,000 in car insurance during my life; never claimed once.

That's just the way it works, and thinking about it on a national scale is just depressing. Makes me feel shoddy as a salesman. :(
 
And that's where my issue with the Audi gap insurance is. You state an average cost of £250 (probably correct), and making a profit of around £100 on average. All sounds fine, and these sorts of figures don't annoy me.

What does annoy me is when Audi quote prices of ~£700. That is ridiculous. I have seen cases (and indeed just mentioned on here) that buyers are persuaded to add it to their PCP, so you can add 6% interest to that figure too.

In my case the dealer came down by £200 straight away but couldn't compete with the ALA price, and couldn't provide a summary of benefits of the Audi insurance. If Audi are genuinely saying their 'Asset Protection' is worth so much more money they need to make the benefits clear from the start.
 
What does annoy me is when Audi quote prices of ~£700. That is ridiculous. I have seen cases (and indeed just mentioned on here) that buyers are persuaded to add it to their PCP, so you can add 6% interest to that figure too.

and annoys me, it' s what I call double glazing greedy b******* syndrome and applies across all industries involving sales, service or product.......you start at a stupidly high price 'cos some mug is likely to pay it and particularly if you are British as it's a national trait not to bargain/ barter at source and only complain after the sale.
 
Wow didnt expect the question to cause such a stir!
but I think the general thought is to cancel audis package and get it from one of the sites suggested for less?
 
Wow didnt expect the question to cause such a stir!
but I think the general thought is to cancel audis package and get it from one of the sites suggested for less?
Or use a cheaper quote to try and knock down the Audi dealer quote.
 
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Well its done. Removed over the phone with a business manager (will probably go with ALA).

He did try and scare me by saying I really need to read the small print if going third party, you may end up getting ripped off etc etc etc.

But ALA seems to be widely used, especially reading this thread.
 
Word.

Basically the FSA to the FCA is to increase professionalism and transparency within the industry; so I am sure we will see some big improvements in the next few years.

I'd rather it was like that, I hate customers thinking I'm trying to get one over on them :(

Actually the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) brought about greater transparency (separating the charges/cost between the product and sale/commission/fee) of a finanical product and setting a higher bench mark for those that give advice on financial products. RDR took effect from the 1st January 2013.

The Financial Services Authority change of name to Financial Conduct Authority is more cosmetic than anything else and I would say the FSA got a number of things wrong over the years, the government and those making regulatory change wanted to disassociate themselves with an entity that had been formed under the previous Labour government.

I have been quite late in reading this thread on Gap. I have enjoyed all the posts/comments and never felt anyone was overstepping the mark in what constitutes advice and breaking any rules.

The positive aspect of 16Klappe's comments as I see it is that because a product is more expensive, one should not immediately dismiss it. You would think if someone can afford to finance/purchase a £26k+ car, splitting hairs over a couple hundred of pounds on the Gap provider should not be an issue. I have learned it is wrong to assume. I have clients who are wealthy that will split hairs over a couple hundred pounds and others who would not batter an eyelid over a large sum of money.

Affordability will dictate and for most people, if they can get a product (Gap) for less with the same benefits, they will run with the cheaper alternative irrespective if the claim/payout history is worse with that provider.

I am pleased to hear that many of the people posting in here do take out insurance and are not put off from previous experiences or pushy salesman. With RDR and forums/sites with information available to everybody, old school selling is certainly becoming a thing of the past. More clients/customers are switched on and empowered with knowledge.

Brad- pleased you managed to make a decision based on information available to you and input from all in here. For the record, I have not got Gap.