What is Acca Insurance?

Acca insurance is a type of betting cover you can claim on accumulator bets. Bookies with this feature refund your stake if one leg from an otherwise winning accumulator loses.

How Does Acca Insurance Work?

Most UK betting sites offer this feature for popular sports and football accumulators with five or more selections. It is a solid safety net that ultimately gets you something back (your stake) if you are covered. This is refunded to you in free bet tokens or cash.

Let’s imagine you review our bet tips and make your selections for a 5+ leg accumulator. You place this 5-leg footie acca and 4 out of 5 win, meaning one is a loser. As just that one leg has let you down, you get insurance.

Here’s some more detail.

• What it Costs – Almost always free, we have never heard of anyone paying for acca insurance or any bookmaker charging for it. The feature is automatically applied to qualifying accumulator bets, unless stated otherwise. In some cases, you may be required to claim in advance or check a box to opt in.
• Where to Find It – Insurance is automatically applied to selections on some sites. You must tick a box on others during bet placement. Most bookmakers display/indicate the insurance option above eligible markets.
• What Sports it is Available On – It’s generally available to use on a wide range of different sports and markets like football and horse racing. If unsure, find out what your bookie covers by checking the terms and conditions of their offers. Reach out to customer support for confirmation if you still need help.

Some bookies provide their own version of this insurance, which applies to 4-leg multiples or even trebles. The key to finding the best insurance for acca tips is to compare them across bookies.

What Does 5+ Acca Insurance Mean?

This term refers to accumulator insurance that applies to bets comprised of five or more selections. In other words, these are the minimum number of legs you need for insurance to kick in. Again, not all bookies set their threshold at five legs so check beforehand.

Here’s an example of a 5+ acca when betting on English Premier League football matches.

• Liverpool vs AFC Bournemouth – Liverpool (2/5) – Winner
• Aston Villa vs Newcastle United – Aston Villa (11/8) – Winner
• Brighton & Hove Albion vs Fulham – Brighton & Hove Albion (5/6) – Winner
• Sunderland vs West Ham – West Ham (13/10) – Loser
• Tottenham Hotspur vs Burnley – Tottenham Hotspur (4/11) – Winner

Let’s say you place £10 stake on a 1 x 5-fold accumulator at 18/1. If all your football betting selections win, you are paid £191.19 (winnings and stake). In this case, your bet on West Ham to beat Sunderland is the sole loser in your 5+ acca insurance meaning you don’t totally lose out.

But you have insurance for this acca from your bookie. Rather than ending up with nothing, you receive your £10 stake back as a free accumulator bet on another acca with a minimum of 5 legs.

Accumulator Insurance vs Bet Builder Insurance

These are not the same, as insurance covers accas – these are traditional multi-selection bets across different matches or events. Conversely, Bet Builder insurance pays out for a losing leg in multiples from the same game.

Bet Builder insurance (and request a bet insurance) is nowhere near as popular or abundant at UK bookmakers. This means you need to look a little harder for it. This contrasts with traditional accumulator insurance, which is probably available at the majority of online sports betting sites.

Main Types of Current Acca Insurance Offers

Not all bookies offer insurance but it is considerably popular. You can compare what is available at UK betting sites offering this type of insurance. Now, many have their own rules and policies covering how and when it applies – some even have their own names for their particular version of it.

Here are some of the most popular insurance types to look out for.

Acca Insurance Free Bets

This is the most common type you’ll find at acca insurance bookies. Cover is typically available when five or more legs are combined in a qualifying accumulator that meets minimum odds requirements. As with most types of coverage, a maximum of one losing selection collapses the acca.

If this happens, insurance is triggered, and the bookmaker refunds your original stake as a free bet or free bets. There are terms and conditions applied to free bets, with acca insurance betting sites usually matching your initial wager up to set limits (such as £25 at odds of 3/1 or greater). They may also carry additional market restrictions and usually expire after a set timeframe, such as 7 days.

Cashback Accumulator Insurance

Some of the best acca insurance offers provide cash refunds instead of free bets when your accumulator fails by one selection. A good example of this is Betfair’s Acca Edge, which pays a refund in withdrawable money. This is done when the last leg of your treble, fourfold, or 5 fold acca insurance (5+ acca) is settled, meaning you don’t have to wait around.

The best part about receiving cashback at bookies with acca insurance is that restrictions are minimal. You get real money rather than bonus credits back, making the cashback model more appealing to most. It’s certainly preferable to free bets credits for punters who want access to liquid funds.

Acca Boosts and Bonuses

While you may see offers and features bundled into the same space, boosts and bonuses are not the same as acca insurance. The key difference between insurance and these promotions is that the latter generally reward successful accumulators. Insurance, on the other hand, gives you something back when your multiple wager fails.

It is not uncommon for these to sometimes be grouped together in promotional materials. We are aware of some bookies that may offer you a choice of insurance or a boost/bonus. Your selection may be influenced by how confident you are in the bet winning, or it could simply be a matter of risk vs security.

Best Sports for Accumulator Insurance

Certain sports offer particularly attractive opportunities for insurance. Football and horse racing, for example, are great due to their event frequency, market variety, and competitive odds. These are the sports best suited to insurance for accas.

Football Acca Insurance

Football is undoubtedly the most popular sport for accas in the United Kingdom. As such, football fans are the target demographic for most online betting sites offering these deals. But while some football insurance offers are only available for Premier League or Champions League matches, others can be used on various sports.

There is an exceptional volume of fixtures in the football season. This means you’ll never struggle to identify suitable bets from matches in major competitions and tournaments. By that very same token, you’ll also find more insurance coverage for football than any other sport.

Horse Racing Acca Insurance

Racing is another sport that provides excellent opportunities to punters looking for insurance offers. We particularly like the deals available around major horse racing festivals like Cheltenham, Royal Ascot, the Epsom Derby, and the 1000 Guineas. There are other major meetings throughout the year where insurance is offered.

Horse racing is another sport that is hugely popular in the UK simply by virtue of the number of races you can bet on. So, there are also smaller events that can be used to create multiple selections daily. This makes it ideal for building your insured accumulators on a more regular basis.

Tennis Acca Insurance

You also can’t go wrong for insurance on accas in tennis. We especially like combining tennis tips for tournaments such as Wimbledon, Roland Garros, and the US Open. Insurance is always nice to have if you are betting regularly on these major matches and events.

Tennis has a favourable tournament structure that lends itself well to multiple selections like player specials or set betting. You can often follow your bets on live TV, as the BBC usually holds the rights to matches in Wimbledon. If you’re looking to build several accumulators with insurance protection, tennis markets are always a good shout.

Rugby Acca Bet Insurance

We also like adding rugby predictions to our accas and insuring them for if one leg fails. Both rugby union and rugby league are abundant with matches to bet on. The more matches available to bet on mean the greater the number of accumulators you can create.

Like other sports we cover, the structured season and tournament format in rugby matches make it suitable for insurance. Bookies will therefore provide offers around big tournaments like the URC, Six Nations, Rugby League World Cup, and much more. You can add some selections in with football, tennis, boxing, etc.

Accumulator Insurance for MMA and Boxing

We always like mixing up accas where possible, so you might find some boxing and MMA legs included. Combat sports do provide their own accumulator opportunities through title fights, tournaments, event cards, and even exhibition bouts. We have even seen some crossover bouts like Mayweather vs McGregor in the 21^st century.

One thing that is particularly attractive about using insurance for accas on UFC/MMA fights is the often unpredictable nature of bouts. The same applies to boxing, in a sense. So, if you’re set on adding a boxing or mixed martial arts leg, that added insurance can be valuable.

Multi-Sport Insurance for Accas

A multi-sport acca simply means one created from selections across different sports. Here’s an example of what one might look like.

As you can see, we have multi-sport bets with football, tennis, cricket, and horse racing selections included. Our intention is to place the wager at fixed odds bookmakers via our mobile app.

We also checked that this combined 5-leg multiple bet and featuring these specific markets was covered by insurance for accumulators. You should do this before placing yours ahead of game play.

Event-Specific Acca Insurance

The sporting calendar is wide and vast, with plenty of different events each year. This means you can put a red circle around championships and tournaments and wager on them when they come around. There’s the Olympics, the Cheltenham Festival, the FIFA World Cup, as well as a mix from other sports.

Annual events like the Super Bowl in the NFL or the FA Cup will always be extremely popular. But others might not be as good for enhanced insurance terms as quadrennial championships like the Euros or the Cricket World Cup.

More Sports Suitable for Acca Bet Insurance

Here are some other sports regularly covered by insurance.

• Darts – Find insurance for accas on most major tournaments and championships.
• Greyhound Racing – You can get cover for bets on greyhounds racing across UK and Irish tracks.
• Snooker – Popular with acca builders looking for insurance on bet in big competitions and ranking events.
• NBA – Create insured accas for basketball in the sport’s elite league.
• Golf – Among the best sports for insurance on majors and tour championship accas.

We also recommend accas for other American sports like baseball and ice hockey. Although stake refunds via insurance has not been as widely available, things are beginning to change on that front.

Different Types of Bets Covered by Acca Insurance

We’ve already talked about the different sports covered by this type of bet insurance. But there are also different types of markets – such as the KO in UFC fights – you can wager on with more traditional markets. Insurance can give you a little breathing space on some of these types of bets.

Here are examples of some of the best markets for accas and insurance.

• Match Result – Choose who wins the game/match or whether there will be a draw in a 3-way market.
• Each Way – A popular wager on horse racing and other sports covering both the win and place markets (stake is doubled).
• Win From Behind – You can bet on a football team, for example, to go one goal down and come back to win.
• Double Chance – A bet covering two outcomes in a 3-way market, such as Manchester City to win or draw vs Liverpool.
• Card Betting – Football card bets are popular but you can also wafer on these markets
• Half-Time/Full-Time – Most popular on football, you can also find HT/FT markets for rugby and other sports.

It’s worth remembering that you can mix up a wide range of bet types in accas, providing they are for different events. Accumulators are traditionally comprised of wins/each-ways from several races or matches. But this has changed as US sports have become more popular in the UK in recent years.

You will struggle to build and insure an acca with more than a couple of more adventurous bets. This is because correlated bets are usually not allowed by bookies. Instead, adding 3 teams to win, 1 horse to place, and perhaps another team to get 4+ cards should work.

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