Novated Lease Options - Zeekr 7X
I’m currently weighing up two novated lease providers and would appreciate some input.
I am likely to go with a 2-year lease. One provider is clearly cheaper overall — lower effective rate, no setup costs, and no ongoing management fees. The downside is they don’t offer any gap insurance or redundancy protection.
The other provider is more expensive (higher rate plus fees), but they do include gap cover and redundancy protection.
My main concern is what happens if the car is written off early in the lease. If the insurer doesn’t replace the vehicle like-for-like, I am worried about being left with a shortfall between the payout and what’s still owed on the lease.
From what I can tell, only a few insurers (AAMI, GIO, Suncorp, Shannons) offer replacement with a similar vehicle, but their premiums are quite a bit higher — around $3k–$3.5k annually. I could reduce that with a higher excess, but then I am exposed to bigger out-of-pocket costs for smaller claims (e.g. windscreen damage). For comparison, my current policies with Budget Direct only charge about $40 excess for glass claims.
So I am trying to decide:
- Is it safer to go with the more expensive lease that includes gap/redundancy cover and pair it with a cheaper insurer?
- Or skip the gap cover and instead pay more for a higher-end insurance policy that offers better replacement terms?
Interested to hear how others have approached this.
ETA:
I am still waiting on the quotes for the 2 year option from NLA..
But for a 5 year lease:
The difference in take home pay yearly is around $1590
Difference in lease payments yearly is $2321