As reported in stuff some parents are at risk of having their insurance policies cancelled and claims declined, because of they take out insurance for themselves and a teenage driver, pretending they will be the main driver of the vehicle, when in fact their child will be behind the wheel most of the time. This practice known as fronting is an attempt to make insurance affordable for the whole family.

Instead of fronting, families can make insurance more affordable by cost sharing the excess. If each family member takes a higher excess, premiums are lower for everyone, there is less chance you will need to get an insurer with their fine print involved and their is greater social pressure to be a good driver.

Cost sharing can get complicated, so we have made it easy at PeerCover:

• We ask everyone to make an upfront deposit so there is more certainty that the money will be there when you need it
• Your payout is based on a multiple (normally 3 times) your balance
• Cost sharing of claims is pro-rata based on each person's balance
• We provide an independent view to reduce the chance of disputes
• You can withdraw at any time (noting that your cover will also decrease)
• Each person is still free to decide who they insure with and what level of excess and hence cost sharing they want to take

For this service PeerCover charges $100 per claim paid (shared amongst the PeerGroup), so if there are no claims, there is no fee.

If you would like to form a PeerGroup for your family, contact PeerCover or if you would like to join an existing group join-up today.

When you are renting a car, in most cases high excess insurance is included in the rental price. 

Often the terms and conditions of the insurance are unfair. In fact in Australia, the competition authority has been pursuing some rental car companies for just that, unfair contracts.

Even if the contract is 'fair' the high excess is normally $3k to $5k and rental car companies will often insist on a credit card bond for the full excess amount unless you purchase their low or zero-excess options.

Their zero-excess option is unsurprisingly a nice little earner for them; typically rental car companies will charge $17 - $20 per day. So, lets do the math:

• Annualized, the price per vehicle per year is $6,205 - $7,300. 
• Typical claims per vehicle per year are normally between 0.1 to 0.3, 
• Hence, on average rental car companies will only pay out $300 - $1,500.
  

The rental car company's gain is your loss. So how can you avoid it?

1. Check your current car insurance policy, some insurers will extend cover for rental car excesses
2. Check your credit card travel insurance, you may be covered provided you have met the conditions (international travel, majority of cost paid with card etc) 
3. Buy stand-alone domestic travel insurance which includes rental car excess insurance (e.g. 1Cover) 
4. If you are in the U.S. you can get stand alone rental car excess insurance
5. Freeze the full excess through your credit card bond, noting that rental car companies often state that it can take up to one month to unfreeze your funds and if you are in a crash you may be up for the full excess amount
6. Deposit one third of the excess through PeerCover sharing the risk with your peers

We don't think it just the rental car companies that are making motza from low excess options. That's why we invented PeerCover - so you can pay less for insurance whilst PeerCovering your high excess.

Are you saving on car insurance by buying third party only cover but worried about the cost of repairing your vehicle if you get in a crash?

Third party insurance car insurance only covers the costs of the other persons damages - you have to fund your own car's damage yourself. To cover your own damage you can buy comprehensive cover but often this is expensive and may not cover everything that you want it to.

There is now a new cost effective option - PeerCover. With PeerCover you and your network can cover the cost of damage to your own vehicles. You do not have to change insurance - you can still use your current third party insurer to cover the cost of other people's damages.

PeerCover is flexible - choose the level of cover and who you want in your PeerGroup. You can even choose to have no-one else in your PeerGroup and use PeerCover as a way to save in order to fund the cost of your own damages. With PeerCover you and your PeerGroup make a deposit through PeerCover (to fund future claim costs) but unlike insurance if no-one in your PeerGroup claims you get 100% of your deposit back.

PeerCover only charges a small fee ($100 per claim) to provide the service - so PeerCover may be what you have been looking for to supplement your current third party only car insurance.