My wife recently purchased herself a nice new Mazda MX5RF, when I went with her to make the pmt, sort out docs etc the subject of insurance came up. As I seem to remember the conversation, it went along the lines of, was she sorting her own out, or did she want to take out the Mazda one, it was a good deal, covered this that and the other. To be honest I wasn't really paying attention, but my ears pricked up, when the sales guy asked her if she wanted "gap" insurance. Never having heard of this before, I asked him what the hell he was on about, given the cost of the so called "fully comp" insurance he was pushing. Apparantly it covers the cost of the depreciation basically, meaning if anything happened to the car, there is an amount the insurer would pay out, and it would not be anywhere near what it cost to buy the car, so the gap insurance covers the shortfall. Now I always thought that when you took out insurance you paid a premium based on an agreed value, I know that insurers try to get away with only paying market value (and less than that if they can get away with it), but they are quite happy to take your cash basing the premium on a number of factors one of which is agreed value. So it looks to me they have found yet another way of fleecing the vehicle buying public at large. And yes, my wife was so taken with her nice shiny Mazda sat in the showroom she ponied up the extra for "gap" insurance, shows how long ago it was since we bought a brand new vehicle, it was all news to me!
We've got it on our recent purchase car too. In my head I heard, give it a few years then go and total the car down a steep, off-road hill and you'll get all your money back
I lived in the states in 2009 and gap insurance was a common sale at purchase time. I helped an ex buy a car a few months ago on a second hand 2012 fiesta from an independent and he was selling it as well. It is a massive con.
Gap has been coo on for years although only the last few (pcp generated probably) it's been big in the bike world. I have friends who take it every time and one who used it when his 335 was wiped out after 9 months. Paid up in less than a month, back to purchase price, went and bought an M4
Happy with the peace & mind of Ducati-Gap insurance,.. happy with my extended warranty coverage & happy with my ducati bike.
