What to check when renewing your car insurance

A car insurance policy isn’t a set-and-forget sort of thing. Your lifestyle, driving habits, and needs may change throughout the course of your insurance. To make sure you have the coverage that’s right for you, it’s important to check your policy details, especially at renewal time. You might even save some money!

Amount covered vs market value

The amount covered is the maximum amount that we will pay for loss or damage to your car caused by an incident. When it comes time for renewal, check the amount covered for your vehicle is still appropriate. This amount includes:

• accessories and modifications that are fitted to your car
• registration
• Compulsory Third Party (CTP) or Motor Accident Injuries (MAI) Insurance, and
• GST.

A lower ‘amount covered’ probably means you’ll pay a lower premium. But if it’s too low, you may face out-of-pocket expenses if you need to make a claim.

Alternatively, if you have Comprehensive or GIO Platinum cover you can choose to insure your vehicle for 'market value’, if we agree. Market value is the amount that the market would pay for your car at the time of the incident. The market value of your car includes many factors such as:

• age
• make
• model
• kilometres travelled, and
• general condition of the car.

We may use recognised industry publications to assist in calculating this amount.

Get a GIO Car Insurance quote

Standard vs voluntary excess

When you take out a car insurance policy with GIO, a standard excess will apply to any claims you make, unless your policy states otherwise. But some drivers choose to add a voluntary excess when purchasing or renewing their policy which applies in addition to your standard excess.

By choosing to add a higher voluntary excess, you can lower your premium. You can add a voluntary excess of between $200 - $2,000 to your standard excess.

It’s easy to update your policy. Just log in to GIO Online Services or the GIO App and follow the prompts.

Additional drivers

It’s important to list the people who use your car regularly on your GIO Comprehensive Car Insurance policy so that there is cover* if an accident occurs while they’re driving.

But if a listed driver no longer uses your car, and you haven’t removed them from your GIO car insurance policy, this could affect your premium.

Any person you expect to drive your car more than once throughout your policy period should be listed on your car insurance policy as an additional driver.

An additional young driver or inexperienced driver excess may apply if an incident occurs, and the driver of your vehicle is:

• under 25 years of age, or
• over the age of 25 but has less than 2 years of experience driving after getting their provisional or probationary licence.

Either way, checking your listed drivers at renewal time is a useful habit to get into, as you’ll see whether you need to remove someone who no longer drives your car.

When you may want to remove a listed driver

It can be useful to remove drivers who don’t use your car regularly. For example, if you added your child as a listed driver on your GIO car insurance policy, you should remember to remove them once they get their own car and stop driving yours, so they’re not affecting your premium.

Log in to GIO Online Services to add or remove an additional driver on your policy.

Log in to GIO Online Services

Read more:

• What you need to know about managing your car insurance policy online
• A guide to reading your Car Insurance PDS
• What’s the difference between amount covered and market value?

*Subject to the terms, conditions, limits and exclusions of your policy. 

Insurance issued by AAI Limited ABN 48 005 297 807 trading as GIO. Read the relevant Product Disclosure Statement before purchasing this insurance. Go to gio.com.au for a copy. The Target Market Determination is also available. This advice has been prepared without taking into account your particular objectives, financial situation or needs, so you should consider whether it is appropriate for you before acting on it. The information is intended to be of a general nature only. 

Subject to any rights you may have under any law (including the Australian Consumer Law), we do not accept any legal responsibility for any loss or damage, including loss of business or profits or any other indirect loss incurred as a result of reliance upon the information. Please make your own enquiries