No claims discount query

[MrJuice]

Let's say I had 4 years NCD. Then I was rear ended by someone who gave false details. My insurance company paid for my repairs

Do I then lose some or all of my NCD?

I have been sent a NCD certificate saying I now have five years NCD... which doesn't make sense to me

[spookly]

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. NCD are a completely arbitrary system, with made up rules, and different rules applied across the industry.
Most insurers would have taken some or all of your NCD. Yours hasn't. If that was me then I wouldn't be pointing that out to them.

[Roofless Toothless]

Does NCD mean anything in circumstances like this when my last insurer simply put my premium up after a no fault claim and left the discount unaltered?

[dacouch]

Did you not take the other drivers reg plate details?

P.S If you have an accident in the future, a good trick when they give you a phone number is to either ring it at the road side to check it is correct or ask them to ring you

[vwsam_]

My car was vandalised over a year or so ago, had to have a few thousand pounds worth of work done to it, which the insurance paid for. This didn't affect my NCB as written out in my insurance policy. Maybe your insurer has a similar policy where an incident that wasn't you fault won't affect your NCB. Like others have said though, accept it and don't question it!

[Ninja59]

Depends on insurer some have moved to consider vandalism and incidents where you were not at fault with a person uninsured that they will not take any NCD away from you (but usually there is interesting "terms" like you must know the name, their address etc.).

Obviously they will say that your premium may still increase though because of the incident.

[andburg]

Roofless Toothless said:

Does NCD mean anything in circumstances like this when my last insurer simply put my premium up after a no fault claim and left the discount unaltered?

thats exactly how it works, they calculate a base premium based on risk then apply a discount for NCB.
You'd been involved in an accident and were therefore deemed a higher risk, your base premium went up but they continued to apply NCB at the same rate.

[Roofless Toothless]

andburg said:

Roofless Toothless said:

Does NCD mean anything in circumstances like this when my last insurer simply put my premium up after a no fault claim and left the discount unaltered?

thats exactly how it works, they calculate a base premium based on risk then apply a discount for NCB.
You'd been involved in an accident and were therefore deemed a higher risk, your base premium went up but they continued to apply NCB at the same rate.

Oh yes, I perfectly well understand how it works. The trouble is, though, you still end up paying more despite being an innocent party, and the costs recovered for the incident coming from the guilty party's insurers. One way or the other you are out of pocket.

My apparent 'increased risk' involved having parked in a public car park while we went shopping. The car was backed into and damaged, but two people witnessed it. The driver made off, but later was traced. Now, who doesn't use public car parks now and then? Aren't we all greater risks if this is the case? I wasn't even asked how often we use a car park, so no statistical comparisons could have been made. It was just a convenient peg to hang a premium increase on.

If you are charged extra to protect your NCB, sure they don't increase it. But they just raise your premium, so they win anyway.

NCB is weird. Who else sells a customer a product and then penalises him for using it? And then has the cheek to offer an extra 'protection' fee to stop them doing it? And then gets round the whole thing anyway by just hiking the premium?

[surveyor_101]

Depends on insurer doesn't it some like direct line have non insured driver cover so you don't lose your no claims.

Then you might have protected no claims, which is a bit of scam in my mind.

As far as I know, if you don't have the above you lose 2 years for 1 claim, at least that's what happened to me. Also, most insurers only count 5 years as full no claims.

So I have 13 years according to my schedule but had a driver on my policy had a fault claim and they then said you actually have 5 years plus the other 8 don't really count so we take two so now you have 3!

[andburg]

don't get me wrong i agree but ask yourself truthfully, did you do everything possible to personally minimise that risk or could you have done more?

could you have parked further away from the doors where there were less cars?
could you have gone at a different time when the car park was quieter?

There are always a lot of decision you don't think you made that affect the level of risk.

you could have decided not claim and just repaired the car or left it completely? there are people out there who might not have bothered.

[matjk]

NCB is a total lie, and just a marketing trick, Basically we will give you discount X of value Y , but Y has no fixed value.
If you call and ask for a quote and state you have zero no claims, get the price then suddenly remember you actually have 60% NCD they will not knock 60% off the quote price, they will squirm and use excuses like introductory discounts for the reason it doesn't work like this.
The biggest con is protected no claims, where you pay to cover a discount that never really exisits

[MrJuice]

dacouch said:

Did you not take the other drivers reg plate details?

P.S If you have an accident in the future, a good trick when they give you a phone number is to either ring it at the road side to check it is correct or ask them to ring you

Did both. But some people are dirty lying scrotes. Police were driving by and stopped. Officer asked if everything was okay and we both said yes. Officer said shame, both nice cars and went on his way. I had no reason to think dude would deny any knowledge of the accident

[MrJuice]

Just to add

The NCB certificate also says 'claims: none'

I haven't read the t&c but suspect I was probably covered by some clause which protected me against a fraudulent third party as is the case in my case. As said above, I'm not complaining and won't be questioning what's happened. Renewal was too expensive though. New policy with another insurer I've not used before who are cheaper than previous policy

[Pica-Pica]

surveyor_101 said:

Depends on insurer doesn't it some like direct line have non insured driver cover so you don't lose your no claims.

Then you might have protected no claims, which is a bit of scam in my mind.

As far as I know, if you don't have the above you lose 2 years for 1 claim, at least that's what happened to me. Also, most insurers only count 5 years as full no claims.

So I have 13 years according to my schedule but had a driver on my policy had a fault claim and they then said you actually have 5 years plus the other 8 don't really count so we take two so now you have 3!

That should/would have been spelled out in the paperwork.

[pteron]

matjk said:

NCB is a total lie, and just a marketing trick, Basically we will give you discount X of value Y , but Y has no fixed value.
If you call and ask for a quote and state you have zero no claims, get the price then suddenly remember you actually have 60% NCD they will not knock 60% off the quote price, they will squirm and use excuses like introductory discounts for the reason it doesn't work like this.
The biggest con is protected no claims, where you pay to cover a discount that never really exisits

This is so true. After multiple runs through compare the market and money supermarket with identical details, I managed to get the quote from one company down from 1200 to 800 quid with my 12 years NCD (but a young named driver).

Phoned them up, they asked if I wanted to put my other car on the policy too. I told them I was going to SORN it and move its NCD to this car. Let me look says the pleasant young chap. 'We can do this car for 600 quid and add the other for 230, is that ok?" "But what about the NCD" says I. "Oh that stays with the other car, you don't need it on the new car".

Hmmm

[surveyor_101]

pteron said:

This is so true. After multiple runs through compare the market and money supermarket with identical details, I managed to get the quote from one company down from 1200 to 800 quid with my 12 years NCD (but a young named driver).

Phoned them up, they asked if I wanted to put my other car on the policy too. I told them I was going to SORN it and move its NCD to this car. Let me look says the pleasant young chap. 'We can do this car for 600 quid and add the other for 230, is that ok?" "But what about the NCD" says I. "Oh that stays with the other car, you don't need it on the new car".

Hmmm

Whenever I challenge a quote the magically drop it!

[coffeebreath]

I didn't understand NCD for a long time when I started driving, when I passed my test I wasn't driving but my mum had me on her insurance for two years so I applied 2 years NCD to my first car, no one ever asked for documents, and when I left I had a nice certificate for 3 years NCD. Just go along with it.

[BertBert]

Wow, what a bunch of whiners.

Looks to me like it's pretty easy to navigate the marketing ste and negotiate a great deal with companies that are desperate for customers.

Why does that get all you Victor Meldrews in such a quiver of rage?

Bert

[98elise]

matjk said:

NCB is a total lie, and just a marketing trick, Basically we will give you discount X of value Y , but Y has no fixed value.
If you call and ask for a quote and state you have zero no claims, get the price then suddenly remember you actually have 60% NCD they will not knock 60% off the quote price, they will squirm and use excuses like introductory discounts for the reason it doesn't work like this.
The biggest con is protected no claims, where you pay to cover a discount that never really exisits

You sound confused. Nice is not a fixed %, it's a discount based on years without a claim. Each company can apply whatever discount they want based on those years. They are not obliged to give any discount if they don't want to.

[Wooda80]

Roofless Toothless said:

NCB is weird. Who else sells a customer a product and then penalises him for using it?

So they gave you a discount for not claiming. And then when you do claim, you expect to keep the discount for not claiming even though you have claimed.....