You are covered for more than you think — and less than you think, in one place that matters.
Comprehensive means Sections 1, 2, 3 and 4 of your policy are live. Section 2 pays for your own car. Section 3 pays for what you do to other people. Section 4 is the part almost nobody reads — and it is already paid for.
Already yours, at no extra cost
Death, or losing sight or a hand or foot, pays the full limit of liability — and it follows you into any private car, not only your own. If you cannot work at all, it pays $50 a week for up to 26 weeks. Applies between 17 and 65.
You, your driver, and anyone riding with you. Reasonable medical expenses for each person hurt in the accident.
If your private garage is damaged by fire and no other policy covers it, this one does.
Things in the car, lost by accident, fire or theft. Not money, jewellery, cameras, laptops or cell phones — those are exactly what people assume are covered.
If the car cannot be driven after a covered accident, we pay to move it to the nearest repairer or a place of safety.
You do not have to wait for us to see it first. Send the estimate, the accident report form and a photograph, and get on with your life.
Section 4, Private Motor Vehicle Policy GG-MOT-POL-APV-10/09.
What is not covered — read this one twice
Flood, hurricane, windstorm, tornado and earthquake are excluded from every motor policy as standard. In Trinidad and Tobago. That is General Exclusion 2(a), and it applies whether you are comprehensive or not.
The fix is one line on your schedule: Optional Extra Benefit 1, "Special Perils", which deletes that exclusion entirely. If OEB 1 is not printed on your schedule, a flooded car is your own bill. Look now — we will wait.
A cracked windscreen on its own is not covered unless OEB 2 is on your schedule. With it, there is no excess and it does not touch your No Claim Discount.
Damage to tyres is only covered if the car is damaged at the same time.
Mechanical or electrical failure is not an accident. But if the failure causes a collision, the collision damage is covered.
A total loss pays the market value or your sum insured — whichever is lower. Insuring for more than the car is worth buys you nothing. This is why the value comes down each year.
What you can add
Deletes the flood, hurricane, windstorm and earthquake exclusion. In this country this is not an optional extra so much as the point.
Glass-only damage, with no excess and no effect on your NCD. Replace it and your cover reinstates free once a year up to $2,500.
Pays your sum insured on a total loss instead of market value, less 15% a year pro-rata. It only works if you give us a written valuation from an approved valuator at each renewal — without one it quietly reverts to market value.
Surgery, ICU, room and board, ambulance. Halves at 65 and stops at 70. Pre-existing conditions from the two years before you started are excluded.
A replacement car, or $100 a day toward a rental, from the day we accept the claim until the repair is finished.
The same accident benefit you and your spouse have, extended to whoever is in the car. Worth a conversation if you carry other people's children.
What one claim actually costs you
Your No Claim Discount
The discount is not a gift, it is an asset — and a single claim can take years of it. Guardian's "step back" rule softens the fall once you have reached the third year.
Section 6, comprehensive scale. Third party and third-party fire & theft run 15% / 20% / 25% / 35%.
Protected maximum NCD. Once you have held our maximum discount for two consecutive years without a break, one claim does not touch it at all. Ask whether you have reached that point — most long-standing clients have and do not know.
The honest version: this protects other people from you.
Third party is the legal minimum and it does a real job — it stands between you and a claim you could never pay yourself. What it does not do is put your own car back on the road.
| What happens | Third party | Fire & theft | Comprehensive |
|---|---|---|---|
| You injure someone, or damage their property | Covered | Covered | Covered |
| Legal costs and representation | Covered | Covered | Covered |
| Your car is stolen | No | Covered | Covered |
| Your car burns | No | Covered | Covered |
| You hit someone and damage your own car | No | No | Covered |
| Accident benefit for you and your spouse | No | No | Covered |
| Medical expenses for your passengers | No | No | Covered |
| Best No Claim Discount after four years | 35% | 35% | 60% |
Sections applying to each cover type are set at the front of policy GG-MOT-POL-APV-10/09.
The one thing to know. On third party, your own car is not insured for anything. If it is worth less than about a year of the difference in premium, that is a sound decision and we will say so. If it is your way to work, it usually is not.
Ask us to price both. It takes one phone call and you will know rather than guess.
You still have these
We arrange representation at an inquest or in court, and pay the costs, for any accident covered under Section 3.
Your authorised driver has the same third party protection you do, as long as they keep to the terms of the policy.
Paid for under the legislation, and it does not count as a claim against your No Claim Discount.
Your house is covered for the weather. Your car is not.
This surprises almost everyone. HomeGuard covers flood, earthquake, hurricane, tsunami and landslip as standard causes of loss — they are causes 2, 3, 4 and 6 on your policy. The motor policy excludes those same events unless you buy them back.
The extensions nobody reads
All of these are already in your policy. They are small amounts individually and they are the ones that come up in real life.
If the power is out more than 12 hours and the food spoils, that is a claim. In this country that is not a hypothetical.
Lost or stolen keys, or locks damaged in a break-in — external doors, your alarm, your safe. The theft excess does not apply to this one.
Personal effects of your domestic employee, while they are at your home.
If the house cannot be lived in, we pay rent or comparable accommodation — up to 10% of the buildings sum insured, or 20% of the contents sum insured.
Fatal injury of the insured by any covered cause pays $10,000, or half the contents sum insured, whichever is less.
Your liability if a lost or stolen card is used by someone else — provided you reported it to the police.
On holiday, not a business trip. Most people insure this separately without realising they already have it.
Kept in the open, inside your boundary. Potted plants count; the garden itself does not.
Water, sewage, electricity, telephone and gas, from the house to the public main.
Accidental breakage of fixed glass — windows, doors, skylights — and fixed sanitary ware.
Personal effects of guests staying with you.
Someone hurt at your home, or damage you cause in your private life. You pay no excess on this section at all.
Sub-sections A and B extensions, HomeGuard policy GG-FHO-POL-04/11.
The 85% rule — the one that costs people money
What would your claim actually pay?
If your buildings sum insured is less than 85% of what it would cost to rebuild, you are treated as your own insurer for the difference, and every claim — not just a total loss — is cut by the same proportion. Put your real numbers in.
Section 2.1(e), HomeGuard. Contents works the same way against replacement-as-new cost. Figures exclude your excess.
The limits inside contents
Unless an item is listed by name on your schedule, contents cover pays at most:
· 2% of the contents sum insured for any one valuable · 10% for all valuables in a single event · 5% for any one other item, or any one piece of electronic equipment.
On TT$200,000 of contents that makes a TT$45,000 ring worth TT$4,000 at claim time. Listing it costs very little. Not listing it costs the difference.
If the house is unoccupied 30 consecutive days, theft, malicious damage and escape of water fall away. Tell us before you travel — it is usually a simple endorsement.
If the building has not been kept in good repair, a deduction for wear and tear comes off the settlement.
Sub-section E covers named items against almost anything, anywhere in the territorial limits — the answer to the 2% problem above.
Sixteen lines, and most businesses carry two of them.
Almost every commercial client we renew has the building and the stock insured and nothing standing behind the people, the money or the liability. These are the lines the branch places.
If you own or occupy a premises
The building and what is in it. The starting point for everything else.
Forcible entry, stock and equipment taken.
A customer hurt on your floor. The claim that closes small businesses.
Buildings, contents, liability and business interruption bundled for an office.
If you employ people
Your statutory liability when a worker is injured on the job.
The benefit that keeps good staff. Guardian writes it on the master group contract.
Cover for a team that travels, drives or works with equipment.
If you move things, hold money, or advise
Stock between your supplier, your store and your customer.
Cargo in and out of Trinidad.
Cash on the premises, in transit, and in the hands of the person carrying it.
If your advice or your drawing is wrong and it costs a client money.
Ransomware, a compromised account, data you are responsible for. New, and increasingly the first claim a business has.
If you build, or run plant
The works, the site, the liability, for the length of the job.
Owned or hired, on site or in transit.
Statutory inspection and the damage an explosion does.
Servers, tills, control systems — the equipment a fire policy treats as contents and pays like furniture.
One question worth asking at renewal. If your premises burned tonight and you could not trade for four months, what pays the salaries and the rent? If the answer is "savings", the line you are missing is business interruption, and it is usually cheaper than the burglary cover you already buy.
Insuring the car is the easy part.
You already deal with us. These are the things clients most often wish they had started earlier — and the earlier they start, the less they cost.
Answer a few and we will tell you honestly which of these is worth a conversation — and which is not.
Life
Straightforward cover, quickly. Premiums stop after 20 years — and in the 21st year you can surrender and take back every dollar you paid in, without interest. Full cover applies from year three: in year one it pays your premiums back, in year two half the sum assured. See your rate.
The cheapest way to make sure a mortgage and a family are not carried by one person alone.
Protection at a premium that fits an ordinary month.
Protection with a savings or investment component, so the money is doing two jobs.
Health, pension and people
Private health cover in your own name — so it does not end when a job does.
Written on Guardian's master group contract. The cheapest cover most people will ever be offered.
Deferred annuity plans. NIS alone replaces a fraction of what you earn now.
A lump sum if an accident takes your income away. Often a few hundred dollars a year.
Not sure what you already have?
That is the most common answer, and it is the one worth fixing. We will read your schedule with you — no charge, no obligation, about fifteen minutes.
Call the branch · 657-GGIL