What is the reason to have no-claim bonus protected if insurer will ask about claims?

dacouch

I hope our "Discussion" helped, the answer from scotsman gives you an easy to understand example of the costs arguements and Quotes example gives you some further good information.

clairbear_3

Ive always thought it a con to squeeze extra cash
If you have a fault accident your premium will go up with or without 'protection'
Ive never had an accident but had to have damaged windscreen replaced
My renewal was due shortly and I had a variety of quotes from the internet
When I added the windscreen replacement all the quotes increased the premiums
This is for something not supposed to affect your NCB

dacouch

clairbear wrote: »

Ive always thought it a con to squeeze extra cash
If you have a fault accident your premium will go up with or without 'protection'
Ive never had an accident but had to have damaged windscreen replaced
My renewal was due shortly and I had a variety of quotes from the internet
When I added the windscreen replacement all the quotes increased the premiums
This is for something not supposed to affect your NCB

Did the websites you went onto allow you to show the claim as a windscreen claim rather than a normal claim eg an accident? Also did the question about claims say excluding windscreen claims as most "decent" Insurers ignore windscreen claims so I'm surprised you had this problem

Quentin

When I added the windscreen replacement all the quotes increased the premiums
This is for something not supposed to affect your NCB

It doesn't affect your NCB.

But it does alter your profile, and the insurers to whom you told the truth by declaring the claim quoted you accordingly.

The other quotes you got were cheaper because (to be blunt) you lied on the application form!

lisyloo

If you have a fault accident your premium will go up with or without 'protection'

Not necessarily.
I had a fault accident last June.
I had protection and my premium did not go up.
I got quotes with both 0 and 1 claim and it did not rise.
In fact I did this before I decided to claim rather than pay for repairs direct.
As there was no cost to claiming (apart from losing a "life"), I put in the claim.

SandC

I made a claim at fault some years ago and I have no idea how much the actual damage was to both cars but mine had a smashed in wing and the other one damage down the side. The other car was a nearly new micra and mine was an older Fiat.

Anyway, when my next year's premium came through it was no different as far as I could tell - there certainly wasn't any great loading that I noticed. It remained under £200 fully comp with full NCB and that not exactly cheap accident I had. It was well worth it to me, I can't imagine after that my premium would still be so reasonable had I not had that protection.

I also am not sure if your insurer is likely to give a better premium based on your past history and that changing insurers the year after a claim might make a big difference to their premium offered?

dacouch

I'm glad that lisyloo and Sandc have both had positive experiences with protected no claims bonus it is after all you taking insurance out against massive increases in your premium if you have a claim so in your cases it has served its purpose.

I used to work for a direct insurer years ago and the underwritter told me in an ideal world he would prefer that protected no claims bonus did not exist as it cost them a bit of money but they had to offer it as all of the competitors offered it so if they withdrew it their customers would all just transfer to a new company.

If you changed company it might make a difference with some companies but with most it would make very little difference if any to your premium. Although any new Insurer would remove one of your "lives" off your protected bonusfor the claim (You normally get two "lives" (Fault claims) in a set period normally 3 consercutive years

lisyloo

I'm glad that lisyloo and Sandc have both had positive experiences with protected no claims bonus

I notice that we both have very low premiums (sub £200 fully comp) so this MAY be part of the reason.
Also the type of claim. Mine had no injuries.

I don't know for sure, but it's possible that these may be factors.
But it's certainly not true that the premium will always rise.

My own anecdotal experience from comparing quotes is that for 1 accident you are given the benefit of the doubt, but if you have more and you are penalised.

dacouch

That is the general rule with most companies, they tend to look at it that if you have one claim in many years it is just one of those things (Although it does make you statistically more likely to have another claim). If you have a couple of claims in a few years they do tend to start loading as you become more of a risk in their eyes and are statisically more likely to have further claims.

If you were paying a higher premium and had a claim without protected no claims bonus you would have found quite a large jump in your premium.

darky

correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think anyone is answering the point the OP is making!

He's asking what's the point in paying for NCD protection, if at the same time as benefitting from the retained NCD discount, you suffer a premium increase in respect of claims - your premium still goes up by as much as the insurer sees fit, just that they blame it on the claims rating rather than the NCD! This is partly why i called it a "con" in another post (this plus the fact that insurers sell it to a lot of people knowing full well they're unaware of the claims rating part)

For example, suppose i had a full NCD discount of say 50% and had a claim

Then the insurer could do one of the following for next years premium which is at say £500 before NCD & claims taken into account:
-If NCD not protected: lose NCD discount, but do not rate on claim. So premium is £500 (i.e. no 50% discount for NCD as i lost it)
-If NCD is protected: keep NCD discount, premium reduced to £250, but suffer a 100% increase with respect to claims so premium is again £500

so no difference in premium even though you paid for NCD protection, and you kept your "50% discount":rolleyes:

This is why i am asking the question: What is the point?

........................................................................................................

Point is its an NCD protection and mentions nothing about premiums so it does what it says.

Also your example is incorrect as there would be a claims rating applied irrespective of the fact you had NCD protection or not. Therefore in your example your premium would be cheaper after having taken NCD protection.

NCD protection only seems a con if you don't understand it