Depreciation in car insurance: how much is deducted?

Looking for a depreciation coefficient for your car? In Belgium it goes by another name: amortisation of the agreed value, which removes 1 % to 1.5 % of the insured value per month. On a 36-month-old Golf with a 31,670 € list price, the payout lands between 20,268.80 € and 29,769.80 € depending on the schedule, a 9,501 € gap on the same vehicle.

Does depreciation exist in Belgian car insurance?

Under that name, hardly. That is the vocabulary trap.

In home insurance, depreciation (vétusté) is an annual rate applied to each item. In car omnium cover, the product sheets we surveyed speak of amortisation, degressivity or agreed value, and keep the word vétusté for an exclusion: Beobank, for instance, excludes "damage caused by wear or an inherent defect of the vehicle" from its driver protection cover. Looking for a depreciation grid therefore means looking for the amortisation schedule annexed to your policy.

How much does amortisation remove at 36, 48 and 60 months?

It depends on four settings: the length of the loss-free period, the monthly rate, the point where the rate changes, and the calculation base. The table applies five published schedules to our reference profile (35-year-old driver, VW Golf 1.5 TSI, Flemish Brabant, no claims for five years), list price 31,670 € including VAT (TVAC in Belgian insurance documents).

Payout before deductible, percentages read linearly (our own calculation), list price 31,670 € incl. VAT recorded on 31/08/2026 from Moniteur Automobile. Argenta and P&V start from a list price excluding VAT (26,173.55 € here): at those two, multiply every figure in the table by 0.826.

Two readings. At 36 months, the gap between the harshest and the most generous schedule reaches 9,501 €. And at 60 months, the Argenta Base formula leaves only 10,767.80 € on 31,670 €.

Is a longer loss-free period worth paying for?

At Argenta, the difference between Base and Confort is constant: 24 percentage points from 36 months onwards, or 7,600.80 € on 31,670 €. Since the premium supplement is not published, let us set three calculation assumptions (they are not tariffs) and look for the five-year break-even.

At 80 € a year, the longer formula pays for itself if the probability of losing the car within five years exceeds a little over 5 %. A driver who parks on the street clears that easily. A low-mileage driver with a locked garage, much less so. Our article on total loss details the same logic for freezing the value for 24 months.

Does amortisation also apply to repairs?

Not in the documents we read. Wikifin, the financial education site of the FSMA (Belgium's financial markets regulator), writes that on a partial loss "compensation is calculated on the basis of repair costs", as long as they do not exceed actual value minus salvage. The schedule only plays on a total loss or theft. The table sorts the usual situations.

What happens at month 61?

The schedule stops and the expert takes over. Argenta applies actual value from month 61, Federale Assurance actual value uplifted by 15 %. Beware though: on the Argenta Base schedule, the contractual value at 60 months is 10,767.80 €. If the expert values the car at 13,000 €, switching to actual value earns you 2,232.20 €. If the expert says 9,000 €, it costs you 1,767.80 €. The example is illustrative, and the 13,000 € figure is an assumption.

Is declaring a lower value to cut the premium worth it?

No, and it is one of the costliest traps of the questionnaire. Beobank spells it out: if the declared value is lower than the value to be declared, "we apply a proportional rule". The insurer then pays only the ratio between what you declared and what you should have declared.

Take a value to be declared of 26,173.55 € (list price excluding VAT) and a declared value of 20,000 €. The ratio is 76.41 %.

• On 6,000 € of damage, the insurer pays 4,584.78 € before deductible: 1,415.22 € stays with you.
• If the premium fell pro rata (assumption: 1,135 € for omnium on this profile, Mon-Assurance-Auto public grid recorded on 26/01/2026), the saving would be 267.71 € a year.
• A single 6,000 € claim therefore wipes out 5.3 years of savings.

No insurer publishes the real discount for under-declaring. The calculation mainly shows that you carry 23.6 % of every claim on top of the deductible.

Which caps and sub-limits come on top of the schedule?

They are read separately, and rarely comparable from one insurer to the next.

Recorded on 13/10/2026 from each insurer's public sheets (links at the bottom of the page). These amounts vary by formula and do not replace your general conditions.

Which lines should you check before signing?

Five lines are enough to compare two omnium offers:

• the length of the period without loss of value (0, 6, 12, 24 or 30 months depending on the formula);
• the monthly rate and the point where it changes (1 % then 1.5 % at Argenta);
• the calculation base: list price excluding VAT, list price including VAT, or invoice;
• the treatment from month 61: actual value, with or without an uplift;
• whether a proportional rule applies if the value is under-declared.

Where can you compare these schedules?

AG Insurance, Ethias, AXA, Belfius Insurance, KBC, P&V, Yuzzu, Baloise, Allianz, Federale and Argenta publish loss-free periods and rates that diverge behind apparently identical formulas. Our ranking of the best car insurers lines them up, the comparison tool aligns the formulas and a premium simulation prices the effect of the formula on your contribution. To weigh up cover, see also mini omnium or full omnium and the car insurance deductible.

Method and sources

Site reference profile: 35-year-old driver, VW Golf 1.5 TSI, Flemish Brabant, no claims for five years, around 15,000 km a year. List price of 31,670 € including VAT, Belgian price recorded on 31/08/2026 from Moniteur Automobile. All payout figures are our own calculation, reading the published percentages linearly; policies may apply them differently. The 1,135 € omnium premium comes from the public grids of Mon-Assurance-Auto (recorded 26/01/2026); the 40, 80 and 120 € yearly supplements and the 13,000 € expert value are calculation assumptions, not tariffs.

Amortisation schedules: Argenta product sheet, P&V product sheet (version 2024-10), Federale Assurance information document, all consulted on 13/10/2026. Proportional rule and wear exclusion: Beobank. Sub-limits: KBC and the AND-E information document published on toyota.be. Settlement principles: Wikifin, an initiative of the FSMA, updated 8 June 2026. The 20,000 € at 20 months example: Test-Achats dossier dated 11/01/2021. Contractual framework: the Belgian Insurance Act of 4 April 2014.

This site compares and calculates. It sells no insurance, is not an intermediary and issues no individual recommendation: for your own situation, speak to your insurer or to a broker registered with the FSMA. If you disagree with a settlement, the Insurance Ombudsman handles disputes free of charge, and the Tariffication Bureau remains the fallback for drivers refused third-party cover. No insurer pays to appear here and no link is affiliated.

In short

Depreciation on Belgian omnium cover is called amortisation and is read in a schedule annexed to the policy. On 31,670 €, it moves the payout from 20,268.80 € to 29,769.80 € at 36 months. A longer loss-free period pays off from 2.63 % to 7.89 % of five-year risk depending on its price, under-declaring costs 1,415.22 € on a single 6,000 € claim, and sub-limits are checked line by line. Run a premium simulation changing formula, then see the full ranking.