Insurance - Cheapest way to keep no claims bonus alive after no longer driving

dacouch

Third Party Only is generally more expensive than comprehensive

mikey72

calypsored wrote: »

Insurance stats show whatever they want them to show especially as insurers fund and sometimes conduct the research themselves. If a driver has a proven safety record (5 years in my case) in the past then they wont suddenly become a boy racer during their gap from driving.

If the driver had developed illness/injury in the time off then I can understand it but other than this there is no reasonable excuse for it. You dont forget how to drive or act on the road; in fact I reckon I would be a safer driver now because I would be less complacent about driving.

I really think car insurance is an area that needs heavy reform by government but thats another post. Just to see what the situation would be if I let my no claims go I got a quote on a mondeo 1.8 with zero NCB and only two insurers were below 1500 pounds for third party only for a car worth 200 pound. Lowest I could get was 850 pounds. Ridiculous.

DrScotsman and Blue_Haddock raised some interesting ways around needing a full policy for a car I wont use. Im definately going to try the insurance for a year and then cancel the policy after a month then see from when my 5 years NCB certificate is dated from. If that works I let the forum know because that will save me a heap of hassle.

Are you sure they just don't cancel it, tell you you haven't earnt any NCB with them as you haven't had a full year, and refer you back to your previous insurers NCB, which has now expired?

blue_haddock

mikey72 wrote: »

Are you sure they just don't cancel it, tell you you haven't earnt any NCB with them as you haven't had a full year, and refer you back to your previous insurers NCB, which has now expired?

No because you send them your proof on no claims which they never send back so when you cancel the policy they then send you a new proof of no claims letter with the ucrrent date on it.

mikey72

blue_haddock wrote: »

No because you send them your proof on no claims which they never send back so when you cancel the policy they then send you a new proof of no claims letter with the ucrrent date on it.

So you have actually done this recently then?

blue_haddock

not for a while and not for exactly the same reason but yes i have.

Had a car which i was driving round in when the engine pretty much gave up the ghost, hadn't long changed insurance company and as i no longer needed insurance on the car i called up and cancelled the policy. They sent me a new proof of no claims through with that days date on it.

blue_haddock

One other slightly dubious method i have known was from someone i knew who was going to work overseas for several years. Just before he left the country he bought an old mini that was for advertised for spares of repair and weighed it in as scrap metal.

At no point did he inform the DVLA that the car was no more and so in effect the car only existed on paper so no risk of it being stolen and no risk of it being in an accident. he got the cheapest insurance policy that he could knowing he would never make a claim.

When he came back he simply cancelled the policy and then got up to date roof of no claims from the insurer of the mini.

DrScotsman

calypsored wrote: »

Insurance stats show whatever they want them to show especially as insurers fund and sometimes conduct the research themselves.

You talk about insurers conducting their own research as if it's akin to say Yakult or whoever it was conducting their own research to show the "friendly bacteria" actually does something, when the former really is nothing like the latter. What you say raises three points:

(a) Who are these insurers you speak of who show off research to convince customers that their premium is justified to try to sell their products? I've never seen one.
(b) The output of research into foods like Yakult is entirely intended for the customers to convince them to buy the product, hence why it's dubious. The accuracy of the research that insurers do is essential to themselves as if it's wrong then they risk selling unprofitable insurance, so I can only assume you are suggesting that they keep this accurate research to themselves and make some figures up to convince the public that their insurance costs are justified. I know companies lie but it's a bit of a stretch to be honest.
(c) Insurers know that they cannot just make up lies to convince customers that their premium should be high because in this day and age of comparison sites it'd just take one other insurer to not do this for them to lose business. You must be suggesting that *all* insurance companies are in collusion, an even bigger stretch!

calypsored

If any undertaking conducts research which has an interest in a particular finding coming out then it is unlikely that the research is going to come out as negating facts which allow them to increase premimums.

Obviously they are not lying because this would be caught. However selective interpretation of facts, the use of brief antiquated studies, or ignoring data that doesnt agree with the conclusion you are after is all methods which I suggest has gone on with these statistics that they base their premiums on. One example that I read of is the use to this day of 1993 short study about parents with children under 16 to allow firms to charge higher premimums to such people. Just one study is deployed across the industry to base the premium upon.

And neither would unfair stats to rise price quotes mean a consumer can simply go from one insurer to another. As I understand it the research that is conducted is released through an industry wide body - it doesnt involve each insurance body conducting its own research. It is effectively a cartel situation.

Whatever the case with these stats the price of car insurance is prohibitively expensive for certain categories; its all very well to say this goes with the territory but i'm sure other countries dont have such severe problems for motorists. Inevitably you just get people driving without insurance not necessarily because they wanted to go uninsured but simply because they cant afford it due to abusive pricing.

dacouch

Insurers do not conduct market research to calculate the premiums. It is a highly sophisticate system that the mainly relies on the huge amounts of data the Insurers have on claims (Or lack of them) from their existing clients. The people who interept the data are highly skilled.

I have never heard of the 1993 study you refer to and would add that the vast majority of Insurers give generous discounts to people who are in permanent relationships and normally discounts if you have children as their own data whos they have less claims than single people.

If Insurers worked on the basis you suggest they would lose far more money than they currently do on motor insurance.

The data is not released though an industry body it is highly secretive commercial data that Insurers would not want their competitors to discover. They do jointly commission research into factors such as security (Through Thatcham)

Pincher

Just saw this on gocompare.com

From Admiral:

Special Offer
All NAMED DRIVERS on comp. policies earn an ADMIRAL NO CLAIMS BONUS

Not sure if an "ADMIRAL NCB" is the same as a regular NCB, though.