By Danielle Jordan. Last Updated 12th August 2025. If you’re hurt in a road traffic accident that wasn’t your fault, you may be entitled to make a personal injury claim. Within this, you can make claims for the initial injuries that you are suffering from, financial losses and compensation for damage to your vehicle.

You may also need to make a claim on your own vehicle insurance for initial repairs to your vehicle before receiving any compensation due from the other party involved. If you do this, your insurance company may charge you the excess, which is outlined in your insurance policy.

In this guide, we will answer some of the most frequently asked questions from our clients. We’ll take you through what you need to know about making car accident claims and how your insurance excess works. If you have any questions, please reach out today:

• Ring 0800 073 8804.
• Use our ‘contact us‘ page
• Open the live chat pop-up on your screen now.

Select A Section

1. How Do Insurance Excess Fees Work?
2. Compulsory Versus Voluntary Excess?
3. If You Have An Accident Which Is Not Your Fault, Do You Still Pay An Excess
4. When Do You Have To Pay The Excess Fee On Car Insurance?
5. How To Claim Back Your Insurance Excess
6. When And How Can I Claim For A Car Accident?
7. How Long Will I Have To Claim For A Car Accident?
8. Appealing Insurance Excess Fees
9. Can I Make A No Win No Fee Claim For My Injuries?
10. How Legal Expert Can Help
11. Useful Links

How Do Insurance Excess Fees Work?

We will use the example insurance excess amount of £100. If you have an accident where the cost of the repair is £1,100, your insurance provider will ask you to pay for the first £100 of the repair. The insurance provider will pay the remainder (£1,000).

The insurance provider could ask you to pay the first £100 or withhold this from any payments to a third party. All insurance policies will include a compulsory excess; some will also include a further voluntary excess.

Compulsory Versus Voluntary Excess

Are you wondering ‘a car hit us from behind and my insurance company want us to pay an excess fee – what do we do’? If so, it will help to understand what compulsory excess is vs voluntary excess.

All insurance policies will have some form of compulsory excess. This is applied no matter the circumstances and will be automatically deducted by the insurer. The amount of compulsory insurance you will be charged will depend on factors such as your age, vehicle and length of time driving. Different drivers fall into different risk categories.

Voluntary excess is a little different to this. In a voluntary excess, you will often set the additional amount which you are willing to pay. The more you increase this, the lower the insurance premiums often are. Drivers need to ensure that they are happy with the level of coverage and their combined excess value when taking out a policy. When making a claim, you will need to pay the compulsory and voluntary excesses together.

If You Have An Accident Which Is Not Your Fault, Do You Still Pay An Excess?

A common question concerning car insurance after an accident is, “Do you have to pay the excess if you are not at fault for the accident?” As insurance excess fees are the amount of money that an insurer holds back, you will still need to pay if the accident was not your fault.

The amount you pay in excess varies depending on your individual insurance policy. This in turn is influenced by the vehicle you drive, its age, how many years you’ve been driving and whether you still have your no claims bonus. Some insurance policies also allow you to add a voluntary excess, as we explained above.

In any claim made against your policy, you will need to pay the excess. Read to find out how to claim back your insurance excess in the event you were not at fault for the accident.

When Do You Have To Pay The Excess Fee On Car Insurance?

Before we confirm whether you are expected to pay your car insurance excess fee, we want to discuss the meaning of compulsory excess and voluntary excess. The excess is what you pay when making a car accident claim on your insurance. It’s refunded if you’re not at fault. Compulsory excess is what your insurer decides, whilst voluntary excess is decided by you and is what you can afford to pay should you claim.

If you have excess protection insurance, your insurance excess payment could also be claimed back on one insurance claim during the 12 months of your policy. This is in cases of:

• Fire
• Theft or attempted theft
• Accidental damage
• Malicious damage

Insurers may ask you to pay your excess straight away in order to begin your claim. However, as long as you weren’t at fault for the road traffic accident, you could potentially get this fee back.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions about the excess fee. We’re available to chat 24/7 and can offer you free, no-obligation advice. Furthermore, you may be put in touch with one of our expert car accident solicitors.

How To Claim Back Your Insurance Excess

If you are wondering how to claim back your insurance excess, you could do so under special damages.

Although legal assistance is not required, a solicitor could help you make an excess claim. We would recommend that you choose solicitors who have the experience and know-how to claim back your insurance excess.

Our solicitors at Legal Expert have helped clients make successful excess claims in the past and could help you. If you get in touch with our advisors, they can offer a no-obligation initial consultation to assess your eligibility to claim.

When And How Can I Claim For A Car Accident?

If you have been injured in a car crash, compensation could be awarded to you for the pain and suffering that your injury has caused you and any financial losses you have suffered. However, car crash claims can only be made if the following apply:

• Another road user owed you a duty of care.
• This road user breached their duty of care.
• As a result, you were injured in an accident.

All road users owe each other a duty of care. Per this duty of care, they must use the roads in such ways that avoid injury and damage to each other and themselves. They must also follow the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Highway Code. If another road user were to breach their duty of care by behaving recklessly on the road, this could result in an accident where you are injured.

Contact our advisors today if you still have any questions about how to make a claim for a car accident. Additionally, our advisors could offer you free legal advice regarding your specific claim. However, there is no obligation to start a claim after speaking with them.

How Long Will I Have To Claim For A Car Accident?

Generally, you will have up to 3 years to start a claim for a car accident in accordance with the Limitation Act 1980. This personal injury claim limitation period commences on the date that the accident occurred. 

Nevertheless, exceptions extend the time limit in cases where a claimant cannot pursue compensation independently of someone else. Those exceptions apply to claimants who are:

• Children: Minors will be required to wait until their 18th birthday before time limits apply. From this date, they will have until their 21st birthday to begin their claim.
• Lacking in mental capacity: The time limit will be suspended indefinitely. However, if the claimant ever regains their mental capacity, they will have 3 years from this date to file a claim.

For the groups above, eligible adults can help start a claim on another’s behalf during the time limit pause by assuming the role of a litigation friend. Commonly filled by parents, guardians, and solicitors, this role works to ensure that a claimant’s best interest is prioritised throughout the process. Furthermore, litigation friends are also expected to keep the claimant informed as best as they can and perform various duties on their behalf.

To learn more about claiming on behalf of a loved one after a car accident, please contact one of our friendly advisors today. They can also answer any questions you may have about paying insurance excess fees. Our next section answers one such question: “Do you pay excess if not at fault?”

Appealing Insurance Excess Fees

If you’re wondering, “Do I have to pay excess if the accident was not my fault?”, then the answer is yes. As we have already mentioned, if you’ve been in a road traffic accident that wasn’t your fault, you still pay your excess. But, you should be refunded for what you’ve paid during the claim if you’ve proven that you weren’t liable.

However, if you’re in a position where the insurer refuses to refund your insurance excess fees despite you providing evidence that you weren’t liable for the accident, here are your options:

• Internal Dispute Resolution – you can raise the issue with the insurer’s department of internal dispute resolution before resorting to other avenues. They’re required to review your complaint and offer an outcome. 
• Ombudsman Intervention – If you’re not happy with the outcome after the internal dispute resolution, you can turn to the Financial Ombudsman Service. They are a service that resolves complaints, and insurers are obliged to comply with their decision.
• Solicitors – Alternatively, an experienced road traffic accident solicitor can work to resolve insurance disputes on your behalf. 

By engaging with one of our specialist solicitors, they can do all the hard work. This may be the easiest option for you, especially if you’ve never made a road traffic accident claim before. They can correspond with the insurer while you relax and recover, and answer any of your questions along the way, such as “If a car accident was my fault, do I pay excess?”.

To ensure you’re not further out of pocket, our solicitors also operate on a No Win No Fee basis.

Can I Make A No Win No Fee Claim For My Injuries?

If you have an eligible road traffic accident claim, then you can make a claim for your injuries with one of our No Win No Fee solicitors. Our solicitors all offer their clients a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), which means you don’t pay anything in solicitor fees unless your claim is successful. This includes:

• Before the case begins. 
• The entire time while the case is ongoing. 
• If the case is unsuccessful.

What happens instead if your claim wins is that your solicitor will deduct a small success fee out of your compensation. This success fee is for their services and is taken as a legally capped percentage.

Additionally, these are just some of the services that our solicitors can offer on No Win No Fee terms:

• Correspond with all relevant parties on your behalf. 
• Work to refund your insurance excess fees.
• Gather evidence for you. 
• Ensure the compensation is calculated fairly. 
• Explain legal jargon. 
• Update you regularly throughout the case. 
• Answer any questions you may have, such as “Do you have to pay excess if I was not at fault for the car accident?”.

So, if you’d like to make a car accident claim in this way and receive legal help, please contact us today.

How Legal Expert Can Help

As mentioned, you may still have to pay an excess if the accident was not your fault. However, our experienced solicitors at Legal Expert can help you claim back your insurance excess fee and any additional premiums and costs you faced if you had claimed for repairs through your insurance.

If you get in touch with our advisors today, they could potentially connect you with one of our specialist road traffic accident solicitors. To learn more about how we could help you, you can reach out to an adviser now by:

• Calling us on 0800 073 8804
• Filling out the form on our contact us page
• Using the live chat feature

Useful Links

Here are a few of our other guides on road traffic accident claims:

• Learn how much compensation could be awarded for a cycling accident claim.
• Learn more about how to make a pedestrian accident claim.
• Advice on hot to make a motorbike accident claim.

These other pages might also be useful:

• THINK! – a campaign on road safety with facts on current road safety laws.
• NHS – how to access your GP health record,
• Gov.UK – how to get Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if your car accident injuries have meant you’ve needed time off work.

Thank you for reading this guide on car accident claims and insurance excess fees.