Ethias car insurance: price, excess and limits

Ethias is neither the cheapest nor the dearest. Its RC (third-party liability) at €363 sits close to the average of nine insurers (€353), but its full omnium (comprehensive cover) lands 15% above the average of six insurers in Leuven. The gap sits in the omnium part, and the 20% first-year discount erases it for one year, not three.

How much does Ethias cost, quote by quote?

No public quote covers our reference profile: a 35-year-old driver, a Golf 1.5 TSI, Flemish Brabant, no claim in five years and about 15,000 km a year. Ethias publishes no grid. Five independent quotes remain, each with its own profile, which the table keeps apart rather than blending into an average that would represent nobody.

The last row is the closest to our profile: mileage within 5%, same claim-free seniority, and Leuven is the capital of Flemish Brabant. It dates from February 2025, though, before the 2026 tariff of the first row.

The figures do not line up, and that is not a flaw in the method. A 2024 diesel Golf in Brussels is not priced like a C3 in Leuven, and going from 10,000 to 20,000 km changes the bill. They set orders of magnitude instead: €360 to €430 for RC, €1,000 to €1,300 for full omnium.

A middling RC, an omnium above average

On RC, the grid of 26 January 2026 puts Ethias above the direct insurers and barely above the average.

P&V and DVV show no online price. The gap with Yuzzu, whose RC carries the same statutory content, says only this: Ethias sells RC at the market price, not at its floor.

On full omnium the reading changes. Here are the six insurers of CallMePower's Leuven survey (updated 18 February 2025), monthly amounts shown by the quote tools and multiplied by twelve, with no promotion.

Ethias comes fifth out of six. Since RC is around average, the gap probably sits in the omnium part. That is a cautious reading, not a measurement: the two sources share neither the car nor the date.

Ethias is above average in ten cities out of eleven

The same CallMePower file covers the ten provincial capitals and Brussels, with an identical car and driver everywhere. Ethias is dearer than the six-insurer average in ten of them.

Only Liège is an exception. The average gap over the eleven cities reaches 13.5%, and consistency matters more than level: a gap that does not depend on the city comes from Ethias's tariff, not from local claims experience.

What excess (franchise) do you pay at Ethias?

Zero, on two conditions. Ethias's official page, consulted on 17 October 2026, reserves it for drivers aged at least 30 who have repairs done at an Ethias-approved garage.

At 35, our reference profile therefore pays €0 at a network garage and €450 elsewhere. The €800 and €500 excesses that the same page quotes for young drivers concern RC, not omnium.

A doubt remains. The two public quotes, the one for the woman born in 1968 and the one for the woman born in 1974, show a €450 excess for women over 30. Mon-Assurance-Auto also offers a line "RC + omnium with €0 excess (under conditions)" at €1,566, which is €272 more than the €450 line (+21%).

Let us run the numbers as they stand. If those €272 really bought a €450 saving per at-fault claim, you would need 272 ÷ 450, or 0.60 claims a year, to recoup them: one at-fault accident every twenty months. No serious profile gets there. And Ethias advertises €0 at no extra charge for over-30s at approved garages, which contradicts that reading. The €1,566 line probably bundles other options that the page does not detail.

My view, strictly on the arithmetic: do not pay that surcharge before you have the list of what it contains. Our guide to the omnium excess gives the general method, and the one on reporting a claim or paying out of pocket prices the effect on the 0 to 22 bonus-malus scale.

Is the 20% discount worth switching insurer?

Not on its own. Ethias advertises 20% off in the first year on RC and omnium, valid until 17 December 2026, sixty-one days from the date of this article. On the quote for the woman born in 1968, RC drops from €427 to €342 and full omnium from €1,294 to €1,036.

Spread over three years, the discount is worth €86 a year. A competitor that stays €86 cheaper on the same cover does just as well, and keeps going beyond. Take Leuven: with 20% off in year one, Ethias would fall to €886.94, under the €963.96 average. Over three years, though, it would still cost €3,104.30 against €2,891.88, which is €212.42 (7.3%) more. The second-year tariff is not guaranteed, and our article on switching insurer describes the notice to give.

Lasting discounts: mileage, good driver, electric

Three discounts do not depend on a date. The amounts below apply their percentages to the quote of €427 for RC and €867 for omnium (€1,294 minus €427), for lack of any other priced base.

The mileage discount is the only one that matters, and it rests on a threshold. Going from 15,000 to 10,000 km means driving a third less to save €151: a little over 3 cents per kilometre avoided. The saving is real for someone who truly drives less. For someone who declares 10,000 km while driving 15,000, it becomes a trap.

The trap can be calculated. With the €151 discount, the premium paid falls to €1,143 instead of €1,294, which is 88.3% of the premium due. Under article 60 of the law of 4 April 2014 on insurance, an unintentional inaccurate declaration reduces the payout in that ratio. On damage D, you lose 11.7% of D. The loss exceeds the saving once D exceeds €1,294, which is exactly the annual premium: a single ordinary claim wipes out the first year's gain. Our article on pay-per-kilometre insurance prices the formulas where mileage is measured rather than declared.

The joker, with no published amount

According to Mon-Assurance-Auto, an insured driver with five years at Ethias at degree 0 has their first at-fault accident ignored. The page also cites another rule, more than ten years of driving and five years without an at-fault accident, without saying which applies. The gain equals the premium increase that the claim would have caused, and no source prices it.

The "30 months without depreciation" option: €80 against €9,045

On the €33,500 quote, the Mon-Assurance-Auto page describes an insured value of 100% for the first twelve months, then depreciation of 18% a year. For €80 a year, the option keeps 100% for thirty months.

Reading the page linearly, to be confirmed in the contract, the gain on a total loss works out as follows:

Ethias's depreciation, 18% a year, is faster than the 12% a year of the standard grid described in our article on total loss. The option is therefore worth more here than elsewhere, but only on a recent car: after month thirty, depreciation resumes at a pace the page presents unclearly.

Four limits found in the sources

None disqualifies Ethias. All are worth checking before you sign.

• The replacement vehicle. The full omnium description mentions up to 10 days of replacement car, while the weaknesses list on the same page notes no replacement vehicle in an at-fault case without a supplement. The Mobility Maxi option covers 10 days during repairs and 30 days on a total loss, with no published price.
• Split payment. It is not free, and no source prices the surcharge. Our calculation on monthly or annual payment shows that a paid split quickly weighs several points of premium.
• Discounts that exclude each other. Mileage, hybrid and electric do not combine, according to CallMePower. Ask for the quote with each discount separately.
• Service quality. Mon-Assurance-Auto relays a score of 75 points and an 8-day average response time on the Test-Achats complaints platform, dated August 2024. We have not rechecked it and it is more than two years old.

A few published prices complete the picture: Europe-wide car and family assistance at €155 a year, legal protection Plus with driver cover at €86 a year (driver cap of €500,000 according to Mon-Assurance-Auto). Our article on driver protection explains why the advertised cap matters less than the disability threshold.

Should our reference profile choose Ethias?

This site gives no individual recommendation. The arithmetic does show where Ethias wins and where it loses.

It wins on the excess: €0 at 35 at an approved garage, while Yuzzu, for example, applies a fixed €500 in the quote recorded on our site. It also wins on recent cars, thanks to the no-depreciation option, and for those who drive under 10,000 km. It loses on the base price of omnium, 15% above average in Leuven, and on the length of its promotions.

At 15,000 km a year, our profile reaches neither the mileage discount nor a long promotion. Ethias would therefore cost more than average over time, unless the €0 excess weighs in the trade-off. To settle it you need a quote from Ethias and two or three elsewhere. Run a premium simulation, compare in the comparison tool, then open the ranking of the best car insurance. For another insurer priced with the same method, see our file on Yuzzu.

Method, reference profile and sources

The site's reference profile: a 35-year-old driver, Volkswagen Golf 1.5 TSI, Flemish Brabant, no claim in five years, about 15,000 km a year. No Ethias price is published for that profile. The amounts come from four sources, each with its own profile, and only the gaps and ratios carry over.

The Ethias quotes of the first row, the nine-insurer grid (RC at €363, average of €353), the discounts, the no-depreciation option, the options at €155 and €86 and the complaints score come from the Mon-Assurance-Auto page on Ethias (Yago S.A., a broker licensed by the FSMA, Belgium's financial regulator, under number 114863), which dates its quotes 21 January 2026; the nine-insurer grid dates from 26 January 2026. Page consulted on 17 October 2026. The page does not date its own update.

The formulas, the three Brussels price quotes and the discount rules come from the CallMePower page on Ethias, updated 9 June 2026. The city figures come from the same publisher's provincial capitals survey, published 29 March 2023 and updated 18 February 2025, on a C3 1.2 registered in January 2022; it compares AG Insurance, AXA, Ethias, Yuzzu, Belfius Direct and Allianz, excluding KBC and P&V. Monthly amounts are shown there including VAT and without promotion; we multiplied them by twelve. The excess comes from Ethias's page on the excess, consulted on 17 October 2026.

The gaps, percentages, three- and five-year totals, break-even thresholds and the linear reading of depreciation are our own calculations. The legal framework is the law of 4 April 2014 on insurance, and Wikifin explains omnium covers.

This site compares and calculates. It does not sell insurance, is not an intermediary under Belgian law, and gives no individual recommendation: to take out a policy, contact the insurer or a broker licensed by the FSMA. In a dispute, the Insurance Ombudsman steps in free of charge, and a driver whom no company will accept can apply to the Bureau de Tarification. No insurer pays for its presence here and no link is an affiliate link.

In summary

Ethias sells its RC at the market price and its omnium about 15% above it. It makes up for that with an excess of €0 under conditions, a no-depreciation option that pays back €80 from 2.2% risk, and real discounts for low-mileage drivers. The 20% promotion lasts a year, and declaring 10,000 km to get the mileage discount while driving more costs more than the gain from a €1,294 claim upwards. Ask for a personal quote, compare it with two others, and check the exact excess before signing.