What is excess protection insurance, and is it worth it?
Facts last reviewed 6 October 2026
Excess protection is a separate policy that pays you back the excess you have had to pay on a car insurance claim. It exists because a higher excess makes the main policy cheaper, and protection makes the higher excess bearable. Whether it is worth it comes down to one sum: does the premium fall by more than the protection costs? If it does, and you would be covered when you claim, you are better off.
How an excess works
The excess is the part of any claim you pay yourself. It is usually two numbers added together: a compulsory excess set by the insurer, and a voluntary excess you choose when you buy. When you claim, the insurer deducts the total from what it pays out, or you pay it to the repairer directly. On a claim that was not your fault the insurer will usually try to recover it from the other driver's insurer, which can take months and is not guaranteed.
What excess protection does
Once your main claim has been settled and you have paid the excess, an excess protection policy reimburses you, up to a limit you chose when you bought it. It is sold as an add-on by insurers and comparison sites, and as a standalone policy by specialist providers. It is usually cheap relative to the excess it covers, because most drivers do not claim in a given year.
The details vary and they matter. Some policies cover one claim a year and some cover several. Some exclude windscreen-only claims. Nearly all of them require the main claim to be settled first, which means you pay the excess and are then paid back rather than never paying it at all.
When it is worth it
The sum is simple. Raising your excess lowers the premium by some amount. Protection costs some amount. If the premium falls by more than the protection costs, you are better off, provided the protection would pay out in the circumstances you are likely to claim in. If it does not, you are not.
The reason the sum is rarely done is that the two halves are sold separately. The excess is chosen on one screen, the protection is offered on another, usually at checkout, and nobody shows you the two numbers side by side. Done together, deliberately, a higher excess with protection is one of the few ways to make the same cover cheaper without changing anything about the cover.
Where InsPay fits
InsPay is being built to take the cost of paying monthly out of car insurance without asking you to find the annual premium yourself. A lending partner pays your insurer in full on day one. You repay that same amount in instalments, with nothing added for spreading it. What you pay for is the InsPay product, and its cost is shown in full before you agree to anything.
The second half is the excess. Your policy moves to a £1,000 combined excess, which lowers what the insurer charges for the same cover, and the InsPay product includes insurance that pays that excess when you claim. So the lower premium is real and the excess never reaches you.
InsPay is not the lender and not the insurer. The credit agreement is between you and the lending partner, your motor policy stays with your insurer, and the excess cover is provided by an insurer. InsPay arranges the payment and provides the product that holds it together.