Car Insurance - does being a named driver affect my main policy?

tobybowes

Hello there

I was wondering, my friend has put me as a named driver on his insurance (with my permission cause i will be using there car on odd occasions). The thing im wondering though is apart from telling my insurance company (main policy) that i now have access to and are named driver on another car will it effect me? If the my friend the main driver crashes will it affect my policy? I know that if i was to crash as a named driver i would have to declare it on my own policy. Hope that makes sense.

Also, its my friends second car, am i right in thinking if he has 3years no claims on his main car when he insures this second car he can say he has 3 years no claims right? Reason im asking this is directline said you can only use your no claims bonus on 1 car at a time (meaning on the new car he would have no no claims), this doesnt make sense to me, i thought no claims was on the person not the vehicle?

Thanks in advance.
Jb

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It makes perfect sense. By your rationale one person could build up No Claims Discount (NCD) on one vehicle and then insure any number of vehicles using the same discount despite the fact that any of the vehicles could be stolen or involved in a claim.

In reality NCD is neither earned on "the person" or "the vehicle" but rather on "the policy". Direct Line are correct that if your friend is insuring a second vehicle for the first time then generally they will be starting with no NCD.

A decent broker, however, should be able to negotiate some sort of discount dependent on the driving record of the driver/s on the policy.

As for you being a named driver on their policy - everything you say about this is correct. A claim by you will need to be disclosed on any policy you're a driver on, but a claim by your friend won't affect your insurance.

tobybowes

Has anyone heard of A-plan? they apparently can match or mirror NCB??

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APlan are a broker. Lots of information about them is available on the internet. I'm not surprised they can mirror discounts - most brokers can if the right criteria are met.