Free insurance as an incentive has been around for a while now to encourage us to buy that car from ertain car dealerships. It never was an attraction to me,I would rather try and get a discount until one day a friend said he was considering it, because to him it was worth £400. His licence wasn't exactlty clean, so for this year at least it was one less bill to pay and he did argue that discounts asside, he was paying the same for the car as anywhere else.

Convinced by his words, 6 months later I though I would at least consider the situation and did buy a car with free car insurance included although proably only worth £250 to me as the car was smaller and my licence was clean. However it was not until I picked the car up that I realised some differences. The first was my excess within the agreement, gone was my normal £50 excess should I have an accident and now it was £250.

This meant I was not insured for small knocks or bumps, it would be cheaper just getting these repaired, there was no legal cover or hire car either. These were all things an experienced insurance saleman would have gone over with me, but not a car salesman.

I had a good year with the car and then came the time to renew my policy. It was at this time I was told that this free policy could not count towards my no claims bonus. The policy had been underwritten on behalf of the car dealership I had bought the car off and did not count towards my own.

The lure of this free insurance had convinced me I had got a good deal on the car, but now when I calculated what it would have cost me had I had an accident and the true cost of another year to gain more no caims on my insurance I realised I had jumped in too quick and should have spend more time going around more dealers to see what they could have offered me.

So if you are offred free insurance for any reason such as buying a car, you should delve more into the details of the policy. Such as Excess value, can you earn no claims, who do you cantact incase of an emargency, legal cover and even hire car cover.

Then ask, how much discount will i get if I don't take on the free insurance. This insurance is costing the dealership money, so ny not taking the policy out, he should be able to pass that saving on to you.

Lure of free breakdown cover. Well this is different becacuse just about evey new car comes with at least one year free breakdown cover and itwill be the same if not better policy than you would own anyway. I would be concerned if you had to use it though.