I have recently changed car insurance provider. I went to my former insurance company with 9 years’ no claims discount, stayed with them for a year, and then changed – giving me 10 years of no claims. Having left them, they have now issued me with documentation stating that I still only have 9 years? I have spoken to them and they are apparently sending me another letter stating I now have 10 years NCD, because some insurance companies allow you to state more years than 9. This is the first time I have been made aware of insurers capping NCB at 9 years – it now makes me wonder how many times this has occurred when changing provider; whether I should be on more than 10. Will have to work this out. Are insurance companies capping our no claims bonus and will this have any bearing on future quotes?
A lot of insurers cap it at 5 years, and for all insurers it makes little or no difference to your policy cost between say 5 years and 10 years. For example (made up numbers for illustration): 1 year = 10% discount 2 years = 20% 3 years = 30% 4 years = 40% 5 years = 50% 6 years = 55% 7 years = 56% 8 years = 57% 9 years = 58% 10 years = 59% 1000 years = 59% Also, remember the discount is not applied to the whole policy cost, just a proportion of it so the value of an extra year of NCB can be very very little or none. In summary: don’t lose any sleep over it.
Many "cap" at 5 years. If you move to one of these, and are concerned about ending up with 5 years, make sure they will issue you the correct NCD when your policy is up before you buy it!
NCD is a con. It does not matter how many years they give you – it is the base price that they charge, plus the discount (as a percentage or a monetary figure) that they give you that counts. That as well what other insurers will give you. I had this conversation a number of times when I worked in insurance. It basically involved me agreeing to give 20 years NCD on a premium that was vastly inflated to cover the difference.
it might not make much difference on the premium but it will on your next one if you have a crash. If you lose two years after a crash when you’re capped at 5 years, you’re down to 3 years. One more crash and you lose almost everything. If you keep the right numbers you don’t lose everything.
Yes the same thing happened to me. I should have 10 years NCB, but it still says I have 9 years.
Some of those policies lose more years for the first claim, so if it’s on 6 or more years then on the first accident it would roll back to 4.
Most policies will drop you down to 3 years ncd after a fault claim irrespective of how many years you had at the start of the policy (unless it’s protected) Check the policy conditions to see how a claim affects your ncd.
Hello Folks, This is my first post on this site… I have a similar issue to the original question. I moved to an online-only insurer in Feb-12 and uploaded 12 years proof of NCD, but they came back and said they would only recognise 9 years. This time, I have moved insurers and received an email from the previous company stating that I had 9 years NCD. I have 2 questions about this: 1) Should the online insurer have stated that I have 10 years NCD (9 years 1 year) ? 2) As my 12 year proof of NCD is only 13 months old, could I send that as proof to my new insurer or should it be my most recent proof(I heard the NCD is valid for up to 2 years)? Thanks.
Unless the new insurer offer discounts for no claims over 9 years then its pointless bothering with it. Send them the previous policy renewal and they may wonder why the gap of exactly 1 year and a quick check on the database may get them asking why you didnt use that renewal. Send them both. But are they offering a bigger discount? Most companies on the comparison sites offer no price change between 5 and 9 years. So makes no difference.
I have 21 years without making a claim but still only get 9 years NCD and this is with the IAM insurer. Every year I obtain quotes from various comparison sites and all seem to only allow 9 years NCD.
It might make a difference when you leave though….at least ensure that you get it written as you don’t know when it might make a difference…. although my experience is as you said, after 5-7 yrs it makes almost no difference on total policy cost….
Thanks for the information. One other point of confusion I have is – when i seek a new quote in the future what would be the NCD years I would enter for the quote. Would it be 9 years from my current renewal or would it be 13 years (12 years originally 1 year from current insurer who only accepted 9 years)
That’s the point…. Firstly it won’t make much difference (or very unlikely) but even so you should supply the current insurer with proof of 12 years…. They will only accept 9…. Then when you change you will have a small battle to get them to confirm or find another way around it!
Agreed, but between years 5 – 9 it is important, and after that you are just keeping an accurate record -incase you need it- to get the best quote. They will only accept 9…. They have to accept what ever your previous letter says, if it says 12 they will have to issue 13 when you leave. Their pricing policy may have a maximum discount for "9 years or more" but that is a different subject Then when you change you will have a small battle to get them to confirm or find another way around it! You just ask them to give you a letter saying 1 "No claims" from the proof letter you supplied them with. They have to comply. You don’t ask them for a letter saying 1 "no claims discount" or "no claims bonus" because they can only issue that wording up to the max of their discount policy so you ask them to word the letter as "xx years no claims" I have 15 years or so now and I swapped around during years 5- 13 and I had no problems getting the correct letters, well, I say I had no problems….. what I mean is I had no problems with them agreeing that yes they could issue such a letter if they could find the letter I supplied as proof. The worst one was Principality or Prudential (can’t remember which ‘P’ it was), they sent me a 5 year letter and when I phoned…. said they had lost the proof I supplied but were good enough to telephone Nationwide and obtain confirmation of ’11 years’ from the Nationwide. Then the ‘P’ agreed they could issue what I wanted but then I had 5 letters issued saying "5 years" each time I was phoning up to say "it should say 12 years, you’ve sent me yet another ’5 years letter’ " until eventually the call centre manager wrote me a 12 year letter herself.
I haven’t made a claim since I passed my test in 1963 – fifty years ago this year. But I still only get 9 years NCB.
Also dont get sucked into the marketing ploy of NCD Company 1: 1 year : 30% 2 years: 40% 3 years: 50% 4 years: 60% 5 years: 70% 6 years: 70% 7 years: 70% 8 years: 70% 9 years: 70% 10years: 70% Company 2: 1 year : 30% 2 years: 40% 3 years: 50% 4 years: 60% 5 years: 65% 6 years: 66% 7 years: 67% 8 years: 68% 9 years: 69% 10years: 69% The above are (or at least were) the percentage discounts given based on the number of years NCD for a mature/ experienced driver. Company 2 had a big marketing campaign about how they reward you all the way up to 9 years NCD where as most insurers stop at 5 years Company 1 actually gives their customers a bigger discount at 5 years than the other company ever does. With all companies, that I know of at least, if you have a fault claim when you have 5 or more years you still drop to 3 years. At the moment there is no insurer that gives any credit above 9 years so tracking above it is somewhat pointless.
Yet company 2 was the cheapest quote, and you would only have got the cheapest from them if you had a 9 year+ letter, so walking away from Company C with a 5 year letter even though you were entitled to 9 year letter is stupid.
Company 2 may be a lower quote as ultimately it is only a discount and therefore the bottom line is a combination of the top line price and the discount applied. It is sensible to keep track of your NCD up to 9 years, at present it is pointless to track above 9 years and if any insurer were to offer a 20 year NCD scale they will have to create a business solution to the fact they know almost no insurer count into double digit NCDs
I think More than go up to 9 for new customers but then go up to 11 or 13 for customers who stay with them…. dont they?
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