Finance and insurance products besides the staples of guaranteed asset protection coverage, or GAP, and vehicle service contracts have made up an increasing portion of dealership F&I product revenue since the pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to F&I software and analytics provider StoneEagle.
“These others are clearly resonating with consumers because they are growing like crazy,” StoneEagle CEO Cindy Allen told the Ethical F&I Managers Conference on March 3.
Vehicle service contracts made up 57 percent of F&I product revenue in 2019. GAP, which covers the difference between the loan balance and actual vehicle value in the event of a total loss, made up 15 percent of revenue. A variety of products, such as prepaid maintenance and tire and wheel protection made up 28 percent, according to StoneEagle.
By 2024, service contracts made up 54 percent of F&I product revenue and GAP was 12 percent. Revenue from other products, known as ancillary products, had grown to 34 percent — the same as in 2023.
“The importance of the others is, I think, significant,” Allen said in presenting the data to the conference.
That’s because the industry’s revenue from those secondary F&I products didn’t come at the expense of GAP or service contract sales, she said.
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GAP and service contract penetration actually grew during that time, Allen said. GAP revenue per deal grew from “about $300 to about $530,” while service contract revenue per deal increased “from about $1,100 per copy to [$1,800],” she said.
What ‘other’ F&I products are selling?
| Product | 2024 penetration* | |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance protection |
|
19% |
| Prepaid maintenance |
|
16% |
| Security |
|
15% |
| Tire and wheel |
|
10% |
| Bundle containing multiple products |
|
6.7% |
| Key |
|
2.7% |
| Dent |
|
2% |
Dealers’ top F&I products
| No. 1 selling/distributed F&I product | Percentage of dealers* | |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle service contracts |
|
20% |
| Limited warranties |
|
17% |
| GAP |
|
17% |
| Prepaid maintenance |
|
17% |
| Key repair or replacement |
|
5% |
| Tire and wheel protection |
|
5% |
| Windshield repair |
|
5% |
| Exterior appearance products |
|
5% |
| Theft deterrent |
|
5% |
| Interior protection |
|
4% |
Larger share of F&I revenue coming from ‘other’ products
Nick Anderson, general manager of Chuck Anderson Ford in Excelsior Springs, Mo., said March 27 his store has success with the two core F&I products but hadn’t seen a rise in ancillary product sales.
“It’s about the same as always,” Anderson said. “We do a really good job with [service contracts] and GAP insurance policies. And then the ancillaries are just kind of bonuses on top of that if we get them or don’t get them.”
Jeff Clickstein, general manager at GMC Danvers in Massachusetts, said: “I’ve seen a little bit of an uptick” in ancillary products. But he called this growth a 2025 phenomenon rather than an increase observed over the past few years, and it could be attributable to changes in personnel.
“I think we have the right people doing the right things now, and [it is] starting to pay off,” Clickstein said. “Whether or not that would have happened with the old people, I can’t say.”
Allen, in a follow-up interview March 25, said dealership resilience was one of the reasons for the growth in products outside of GAP and service contracts.
“I think ... any time they feel like there’s an opportunity to bring in revenue when they can’t get something in other places, I just think they’re really effective at it,” she said.
Allen said product providers also have shown skill in “tweaking” products and developing new ones — particularly in the form of multiple products bundled and sold as a single unit. This product development work also helped grow revenue for secondary products.
“I think that’s one of the biggest trends I’ve seen for the past [two years] has been this bundling, and I think that has contributed significantly to the others’ [performance],” Allen said.
Product providers see growth
Some F&I product providers interviewed during the NADA Show in January reported rising customer demand for products from the rest of the menu.
“Customers increasingly are looking toward ancillary products,” said Paul McCarthy, vice president of sales and key accounts for Protective Asset Protection. He attributed the growth in other F&I products to the increased new-vehicle sales seen in 2024.
“On a new vehicle, I think people are conscious of the appearance of the vehicle,” he said. “They’re conscious of ... how it feels inside.”
New-vehicle shoppers are interested in items such as exterior protection and key replacement, he said.
“It’s still a big area of opportunity for finance managers ... to meet the customer where they are and understand that people place a lot of value on these products,” McCarthy said.
JM&A Group President Scott Gunnell agreed: “We’ve seen more in the ancillary products,” he said.
One theory about this increased interest is around customers who were unable to afford a service contract, but “they believe in protection, and so therefore they’re focused on ... the aspects of protection that they can afford,” Gunnell said.
Penetration
A September Protective Asset Protection dealer survey found dealerships overwhelmingly reporting better F&I product sales in 2024 compared with 2023. Forty percent of dealers said product sales were up 5 to 10 percent, and 31 percent said F&I product sales had risen more than 10 percent year over year. Nineteen percent of dealers said they saw a decline, and 10 percent said F&I product sales were the same in 2024 as in 2023.
Twenty percent of auto retail professionals called service contracts their top-selling product. GAP was the No. 1 product for 17 percent of dealerships.
The survey also showed prepaid maintenance to be highly popular. Seventeen percent of dealers described it as their top-selling F&I product — tying the share who called GAP their top product.
StoneEagle found service contracts appearing on 43 percent of deals and GAP coverage penetration of 35 percent in 2025.
Paint and fabric protection products were most popular out of the “other” F&I items StoneEagle tracked, appearing in 19 percent of deals — up from less than 11 percent at the start of 2019. They’ve “hovered” in the 19 percent penetration range since September 2022, according to StoneEagle.
Prepaid maintenance ranked No. 2 among secondary products, appearing in 16 percent of deals, and security features took third at 15 percent penetration. Tire and wheel was the only other secondary product to reach a double-digit penetration rate, appearing in 10 percent of deals.
Clickstein cited wheel and tire as an example when discussing GMC Danvers’ increase in ancillary product sales.
A blown tire could be a $1,000 repair bill, he said. “To buy the contract is prudent,” he said.
Some of these secondary F&I offerings actually might have had higher penetration than the StoneEagle data suggested because some could be found among the products bundled and sold to consumers as a single packaged F&I line item, Allen said.
“Tire and wheel’s usually one of the leaders in that [bundling],” Allen said at the conference. She said in the follow-up she hadn’t observed bundling extending to GAP or service contracts but heard reports of service contracts occasionally making an appearance in those packages.
StoneEagle found such F&I bundles in 6.7 percent of deals, and Allen said she thought bundles would continue to grow in share. This would lower the penetration of prepaid maintenance — and interior and exterior protection products in particular.
“But it won’t be because they’re not selling,” she said. The customer was just buying them as part of a prepackaged bundle.
“I think that’s going to continue to grow,” she said of product bundles. “It’s just proven to be extremely valuable in the overall profitability.”
