Excess vs Premium Calculator

This calculator works out whether choosing a higher insurance excess actually saves you money in New Zealand, by comparing two excess and premium combinations over a realistic number of years and allowing for the excess you would pay on the claims you make. Insurers let you trade excess against premium: accept a bigger excess, the amount you pay towards each claim, and they drop your annual premium, because you are carrying more of the small-claim risk yourself. The catch is that the saving only materialises if you stay claim free or claim rarely; make a couple of claims and the larger excess can wipe out years of premium savings. You enter the annual premium and excess for a lower-excess option and for a higher-excess option, the number of claims you expect over the period, and the number of years, and the calculator totals the real cost of each, premiums across the years plus the excess paid per claim, and names the cheaper choice and the difference. The honest answer usually depends on your claim history and your appetite for a bigger bill when something goes wrong. A higher excess rewards careful, low-claim households, while a lower excess suits those who would struggle to find a large excess at claim time.

Total cost = premiums across the years plus the excess paid on each expected claim. Make sure you could afford the higher excess at claim time. Estimate only.