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Was offered gap insurance by my dealership for a special price of 320! Yeah right. Told him thanks but no thanks. Have any of you guys got gap insurance on your new or used cars and do you think it's worth it? I'm in two minds weather to get it or not but will to hear people's thoughts on the matter.

Have read plenty of horror stories of brand new vehicles on finance being stolen over on piston heads where the owner has ended up being owe money to the finance company due to the 'GAP' of brand new price and insurance valuation.... along with the loss of deposit etc, it was said that if he had GAP insurance all of this would have been covered.

I think that where GAP insurance is a good thing is where you are buying the car via "hire purchase" or even a pay a bit up front, pay a bit per month, hand car back or pay to keep kind of thing as if the car is written off at say two days old, that £16500 car will get valued at market price, which unfortunately might only be £13850 - leaving you with a big problem, ie a gap of £2650 with no one else for the finance house to get that from but you!

If you just fund the car your self then it is less of an issue as you should be able to get a new car with discount at that price.

I have heard that GAP insurance, can be bought by you from on-line companies, for as little as £50 - so that is what I would do, I funded my own car so I declined that "generous" offer of hundreds of pounds from VW dealer, but they are doing two things, one making sure that you will not fall into that money trap, and two making quite a bit of money out of the unwary, it would be better if they warned you about that AND suggested that you buy your own GAP, rather than hitting people with that at the last minute!

Edit:- a lot of insurance companies also need to know if you are buying new as first owner, or new preregistered - I've noticed with the added bonus of not replacing old with new if the car is written off at less than a year old, you really need to watch these professional scammers!

Thanks for both of your insights onto this, the problem is, which is actually the best gap insurance to go for when it comes to a 20000 car because as far as I'm aware there's 3 different types of covers. From what I can gather, RTI or return to invoice as it's called seems to be the best bet. It's then waving through pages an pages on the Internet finding a company that covers manufacturers extras as I've read some don't and I ticked quite a lot of boxes when it came to extras!

I got it for my second hand 6r and only because I'm a young lad and the probability of me needing it was far higher than someone older :L

If you're buying it on finance then I'd say it's worth it, though you can get it much cheaper online than through VW. If you're buying it outright with cash then it's not worth it. Out of all the things they push (alloy protection, stain guard, etc) the GAP insurance is the only thing I'd go for.

lancslad1985 wrote:If you're buying it on finance then I'd say it's worth it, though you can get it much cheaper online than through VW. If you're buying it outright with cash then it's not worth it. Out of all the things they push (alloy protection, stain guard, etc) the GAP insurance is the only thing I'd go for.

Yeah it's on finance so it's definitely something I'm going to be getting sooner rather then later!

Ended up getting 3 years of return to invoice cover for just over 100 pound with a claim limit of 15000. Could of got it cheaper but was happy with the policy and what they stated it included and what it didn't include. Thanks for your help everyone.