Best known for its rewards-based health insurance, Vitality now also offers car insurance that aims to reward careful and/or greener driving habits with cashback, discounts and free coffees. Read on to find out more about how it works, and whether the perks and quality of cover justify adding Vitality to your car insurance shortlist next time you renew.
Who is Vitality?
You may be familiar with Vitality (previously known as PruHealth and PruProtect) as one of the UK’s biggest providers of health insurance and life insurance. In both cases, Vitality offers rewards for living a healthier lifestyle, which entitle you to vouchers and discounts for anything from a takeaway coffee to a smart watch.
In 2021, Vitality branched out into car insurance, in partnership with underwriter Covea. As with its health products, Vitality’s taken a similar, rewards-based approach. When you take out a car insurance plan, Vitality sends you a sensor to install in your car – a form of telematics-based insurance (though Vitality won’t increase your premium for poor driving, unlike some telematics policies). You link this to a Vitality Member app on your smartphone. Vitality can then measure how well you drive. In exchange for safe, careful driving you can earn cashback on your premium plus points to get you further benefits.
The sensor alerts Vitality if you’ve been in an accident, so it can more easily get help to you if required.
You can take out Vitality car insurance without installing and using the sensor, but you won’t benefit from any cashback on your premiums or build up any rewards.
Vitality’s parent company is Discovery Limited, a multinational financial services organisation based in South Africa.
Who underwrites Vitality car insurance?
Covea Insurance plc underwrites and administer Vitality car insurance.
Vitality Corporate Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It’s permitted by the FCA to act as a general insurance intermediary and credit broker. You can find more details about its authorisation on the Financial Services Register.
What are Vitality’s car cover options?
Vitality only offers comprehensive car insurance – so if you’re looking for third-party or third-party, fire and theft cover, you’ll need to look elsewhere. Its comprehensive policy is 5-star rated by insurance analyst Defaqto, and it doesn’t charge any admin fees for mid-term adjustments.
Its car insurance is available to permanent UK residents aged between 18 and 85 from the cover start date. It doesn’t offer multi-car cover, but you can add up to 3 named drivers to your policy if you wish.
Our table below summarises what’s included with Vitality car insurance.
Product Name
Vitality car insurance
Damage to your car
✓
Damaged windscreen and window glass
✓
Fire and theft
✓
Personal accident cover
✓
Medical expenses
✓
Personal belongings
✓
Liabilities to third parties
✓
Using the car abroad
✓
Alternative travel costs
✓
No-claims discount
✓
Replacement locks
✓
Permanently fitted audio equipment
✓
How do I earn Vitality car insurance rewards?
To benefit from rewards and discounts on your Vitality car insurance, you’ll need to install the free sensor it sends you in your car and link it to a Vitality Member smartphone app. Vitality will use the sensor and the app to track your driving behaviours for each trip. Aspects of your driving it measures include:
Acceleration
Braking
Cornering
Distracted driving
Speeding.
For each trip, you’ll be rated as green, amber or red. Drive well, and you could earn up to 6 points a day. You’ll also accrue up to 6 points for each day you don’t drive at all, as a reward for “greener” behaviour. And, as we all know, points mean prizes. There are 3 main ways in which you can receive benefits.
Cashback on your premiums. For every month of “good” and/or “green” driving habits, you can earn up to 25% cashback.
Reductions on your excess. Depending on the number of points you’ve built up in total over a year-long insurance period, the excess you’ll need to pay in the event of an incident will reduce (by up to £250 if you’ve earned at least 1,800 points).
A free weekly tea, coffee or smoothie. If you earn 32 or more points in a week, you can get a handcrafted drink or innocent smoothie from Caffè Nero, plus discount on food.
Vitality’s optional extras
Vitality has a range of optional extras that you can add onto your policy for an extra fee. These include:
Motor legal protection. If you have an accident, legal protection covers you for up to £100,000 of legal expenses costs, plus loss of earnings compensation and help to recover your excess if the accident wasn’t your fault.
Replacement car cover. This gives you a replacement car (usually a small hatchback) for up to 21 days if yours is written off or stolen and not recovered.
No-claims discount protection. If you have 4 or more years of no claims, you can add on this cover. It lets you make some claims on your plan before it impacts your number of years no-claims discount.
How does Vitality’s excess work?
A car insurance excess is the amount of money you will need to pay towards any claims you make. You can usually adjust an insurer’s default excess, and the higher the excess, typically the lower the premium. But bear in mind that insurers won’t pay out for any claims that cost less than the excess amount, so don’t set it so high that you can’t afford to pay it in the event of a claim.
Vitality’s excess works a bit differently to most, in that you can reduce it simply by driving well and earning Vitality points. When you first take out a Vitality car insurance policy, you’ll start on Bronze status, which doesn’t give you a discount. Earn 1,000 points and you’ll move up to Silver status, which gets you £50 off your excess. Platinum status holders get the maximum discount of £250, in exchange for earning 1,800+ points.
You’ll find details about any compulsory or voluntary excesses in your policy document.
What is the claims process for Vitality car cover?
To make a claim with Vitality, for most claims you’ll need to call its car insurance claims line on 0330 024 0631. For a windscreen or window claim, you can claim online or call its dedicated glassline on 0330 024 0633 You can call at any time – both numbers are open 24/7 and 365 days a year.
Have the following details to hand before you make the call:
Your Vitality car insurance plan number
Details of the incident, when it happened and the damage to your car
Details of anyone else involved, including their registration number
Details of any passengers in all the vehicles involved
Details of anyone who was injured
Details of any witnesses to the incident
Details of whether the police attended the incident
A crime reference number, if relevant
Any other relevant information, such as any dashcam footage or photos.
You need to let your insurer know about an incident as soon as possible, even if it’s not your fault. If you don’t, any claim could be rejected claim later on.
Vitality car insurance customer reviews
Vitality’s car insurance is still fairly new to the market, so there are limited customer reviews that cover car insurance specifically. It gets a 3.9 out of 5 star rating on Trustpilot for its health insurance as of February 2023, with some customers giving it a glowing 5-star review. It’s received praise in particular for its app and its rewards system. It also got a smattering of 1-star reviews, however, with some customers expressing frustration about poor customer service and loopholes in its cover. To its credit, though, Vitality takes the time to respond to 98% of negative reviews, and typically within 24 hours.
It also received a good 4.4 our of 5 stars for its Member App on Apple’s App store. Views from Android app users were more mixed, netting it just 3.4 stars out of 5. Issues with the app syncing with other devices to build up points were a fairly frequent cause of concern. Most niggles mentioned were with fitness trackers, but one review from early 2023 mentioned problems syncing with the in-car sensor.
Vitality has also been shortlisted for Finder’s 2023 car insurance awards.
Pros and cons for Vitality car insurance
Pros
Earn rewards and cashback for careful driving, or for days when you don’t use your car at all
24/7 Claims – the team are available 24/7, 365 days a year if you need to make a claim
To get rewards, you have to install a sensor in your car to track your driving
Our verdict on Vitality
With its rewards for careful driving, or for being more sustainable by leaving your car at home for the day, Vitality is certainly offering a different and potentially appealing new car insurance proposition. And its 5-star Defaqto rated policy suggests the quality of its cover makes it worth consideration, if the price is right for you. And don’t forget, that aforementioned careful driving has the potential to bring your premiums down.
Sure, it doesn’t offer third-party or third-party, fire and theft cover, but this isn’t necessarily a major flaw. Surprisingly, evidence suggests that these lower-level policies don’t always cost less than comprehensive cover.
We reckon that Vitality car insurance is worth a look next time your car insurance comes up for renewal. Or, if you’ve read this review and decided that Vitality is not for you, you can also compare other car insurance policies on the market.
Frequently asked questions
You can do a fair bit by logging into Vitality’s online Member Zone. This includes viewing your policy documents, checking and changing your aut0-renewal status, uploading proof of no-claims discount, adding named driver contact details and setting them up with the sensor. To make a change to your policy you need to contact Vitality.
Yes, Vitality offers annual policies that can be paid in full up-front or by monthly instalments.
No, Vitality doesn’t let you insure multiple cars on a single policy. If you want to insure several cars in a household with Vitality, each driver must take out their own plan.
Yes and no. Vitality does send its customers a sensor that they can install in their car and use to monitor and reward safe driving. But this is optional and only tracks good driving behaviours. Vitality won’t cancel insurance or increase your premiums for less careful driving.
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Ceri Stanaway is a researcher, writer and editor with more than 15 years’ experience, including a long stint at independent publisher Which?. She’s helped people find the best products and services, and avoid the pitfalls, across topics ranging from broadband to insurance. Outside of work, you can often find her sampling the fares in local cafes. See full bio
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