Aston Experience Day - Insurance?

SiD the Turtle · 23 Aug 2017 at 11:26

My wife very thoughtfully bought me an experience day where I get to drive 4 Aston Martins through the English countryside for a day. No idea how good this experience is but looking forward to driving Astons!

They cover the insurance but there's a £3000 excess for any damages to the car. Now I'm not planning to crash but having never driven anything more powerful than my Focus, I am worried that even a small accident such as scuffing a wheel or scratching a wing by me or one of the other drivers for such an expensive car could easily wipe out that three grand excess.

Is there an insurance product that will cover that £3k? I was thinking about trackday insurance, but that's more for racing my own car isn't it?

tom_e · 23 Aug 2017 at 11:32

Google excess insurance.

GhostWKD · 23 Aug 2017 at 11:32

The organisers of these sorts of days normally offer additional products which would remove the excess. It may be worth phoning them to ask, or alternatively checking out their website etc

Hater · 23 Aug 2017 at 11:36

I hire motorbikes. It's £50 to drop the excess from £2500 to £1000, there will be something similar here.

tweedbean · 23 Aug 2017 at 11:50

Track experience events always offer a similar waiver of excess fees, I would normally advise it against it as you wont drive like a loon on the track day experience, especially with the owner next to you as they keep control at all times, shouting out instructions. However driving those cars on the road, I would be tempted, defo contact the organiser via their website etc to see what they offer.

Nasher · 23 Aug 2017 at 12:08

I'm not even sure how legit that "excess waiver" fee actually is. I think it would be near impossible for them to squeeze any money out of you if something happened on track. I'm sure I read something along those lines a while ago.

SiD the Turtle · 23 Aug 2017 at 12:13

Cheers guys, agreed: from reading about how track day experiences are factory lines of people turning up, doing two laps and going home, I think you'd have to be pretty unlucky to stack it, but on the public highway it's a different matter.

I'll have a look into excess insurance, might have to call up a few suppliers as a lot of the policies refer to hire cars specifically. Also good shout on asking the actual company, it's a pretty easy money spinner so they must have something.

muon · 29 Aug 2017 at 00:03

How exactly are they going to recover a £3k excess from you? I can't imagine they ask for a deposit like hire car companies do.

The excess from their insurer mainly exists to make sure they are not being careless in how they are running their business. You are not actually being insured like you would on normal roads as per RTA.

Rich · 29 Aug 2017 at 03:12

They take your credit card when you arrive is how. Unless you pay for the excess waiver.

Nasher · 29 Aug 2017 at 09:11

Take a pre-paid card with nothing on it

[TW]Fox · 29 Aug 2017 at 09:49

Nasher said:
Take a pre-paid card with nothing on it

And get refused.

muon · 31 Aug 2017 at 21:08

Rich said:
They take your credit card when you arrive is how. Unless you pay for the excess waiver.

I doubt they do a £3k pre-authorisation. That would be ridiculous for what can sometimes be cheap experiences (the OPs sounds like a more pricey one).

I bet they rely on a contract.

edit:

I don't know if this is the same as the OPs but they take a deposit of £1k. May have a £3k excess still, but good luck getting the other £2k without a lot of hassle and expense. It will be a small claims suit and so very limited expenses can be recovered.

https://www.buyagift.co.uk/driving-...artin-adventure-br-1021466.aspx#product_tabs2