Bonus Accelerators!

mike81

Are bonus accelerators a good idea for car insurance? I want to save money, but my friends/dad tell me that by building no claims bonus, i can save in the long term. So where is the best bonus accelerator deal?

lisyloo

In theory it should save you money long term (provided you have no claims) but you have to weigh that against any extra you pay for a policy with this feature.
Personally I have not found it worthwhile but you need to do the maths for your case.
i.e. you need to comapre the best bonus accelerator policy with the best other policy and then compare that difference with the likely savings over the years.

Personally I have got the best price by getting a competitively priced policy through quidco.
So last year my car insurance was £146 but I got £75 back through quidco.
Cashback can never be guaranteed so you are best off buying a policy that's competitive in the first place and then don't be too dissapointed if it doesn't arrive.
Having said that I've had 100% record on cashback on insurance (but I'm careful on the techy side).

dacouch

There is no gurantee that it will save you money in the long run as a lot of the Insurers will not accept your 10 months as a years no claims bonus so you are limiting who you get quotes from at renewal to who you got the quote from and a handful of other companies. This is why the Insurers push it so much as it means you are more likely to renew with them.

If you get a quote for twelve months cover it will not be much more expensive than the ten month policy and at renewal you can take your proper 1 years no claims bonus to who ever you want which is often cheaper.

JonBoy_SCFC

can you name 3 decent sized insurers who don't accept the 10 month bonus?

dacouch

In normal circumstances Fortis, NIG, NU through a broker, Axa, there are plenty more.

How about you name me three that will accept a no claims bonus proof that states 10 months no claims bonus.

Bear in mind that if a company accepts it at the moment there is no gurantee they will accept it in 10 months time as they can and do change their acceptance on this type of thing depending on their claims experience

JonBoy_SCFC

The biggest ones - Esure, Direct Line, Quinn, Tesco, Swiftcover, Norwich Union when direct, M&S, HSBC, RSA, Admiral, Elephant, Diamond, Halifax, Churchill, Privilige, PostOffice, MoreThan, Budget ....

Pretty much every company that works on comparison sites, and pretty much every company that operates diurect rather than by broker.

maybe some of these will change in future (i doubt it), but equally some of the few who don't accept the NCB might change too, so that works both ways

dacouch

Those companies are not all seperate companies.

There are people who would be better off paying for the twelve month policy and would save money overall.

JonBoy_SCFC

dacouch wrote: »

Those companies are not all seperate companies.

There are people who would be better off paying for the twelve month policy and would save money overall.

doesn't really matter if they're different companies or not - the bonus accellarator is valid with all of them. More importantly, these are the companies that dominate the market share for young drivers i.e. the ones most likely to be interested in bonus accelerator

There will be a small percentage of customers where they miss out on a cheaper price, but i think you exaggerate the issue, why you'd do that i wonder....

Do you happen to work for an insurer that does not accept bonus accelerator NCB by any chance???:rotfl::rotfl:

dacouch

I don't work for call centre like you.

It would be nearer around 20% to 30% that would miss out on the cheaper price which is hardly a small percentage hence my and other peoples warning people to consider a twelve month policy.

JonBoy_SCFC

i used to work in a call centre a while ago, but why does that matter??

I doubt very much whether anything more than 10% of new sales are covered under these companies - most sales are made from online these days aren't they?

Do you work for a company that does not accept bonus accelerator

dacouch

I don't work for an Insurer.

There can be other reasons why a twelve month policy can be more prudent, it would be nearer 30%.