Maintaining No Claims Bonus when moving abroad

Celticyo

Hey everyone,
Hoping to move to New Zealand in August for a year for work purposes. Will be back in the UK August 2012. Going to sell my old banger before I go, as MOT up in Nov, and would have difficulty getting it passed again!

Currently have 3 years NCB. Do you lose this automatically when you no longer have an insurance policy, or can it run on for 2 years-I was looking at some earlier forum threads and some people were saying it runs on for up to 2 years, just a bit unclear if this is company specific or if it is across the board.

Thanks,
James

Inactive

The best way to be sure is to ask your own insurer.;)

benjus

I don't know of any hard and fast rules on this, but most insurers stop recognising NCBs after two years. For example, confused.com has an option for "No NCB in the last 2 years" when filling in insurance details.

I was in this situation recently, having an NCB that was 2.5 years old. Admiral wouldn't recognise it in full, but did agree to start my new policy with 2 years NCB rather than starting again from scratch.

The_Pope

I went through a similar experience a few years ago. I moved back to Australia for 2 years and didn't think anything of it. When I came back and attempted to "resume" my NCD, I found the answer to be almost universally "no".

The best I could manage was to resume with my previous insurer (which was nowhere near the cheapest deal at the time) and put 1 year under my belt with them, before switching for Year 2 with my NCD intact.

However, the reason I found this thread is because I am preparing to move into Central London and will sell my car. I want to find out if there is a way I can retain my NCD for the years I remain car-less.

dacouch

Insurers will accept the no claims bonus for upto two years after the cancellation / lapse date, there are a few companies including Aviva and CIS who will accept it for upto three years

knightstyle

We were in a similar position last year when wanting to insure a UK car after living in France for many years. Found a broker, Stuart Collins from Swansea, who got us insurance with AXA and took on our full NCB from France. Have heard that Direct Line will do it but when I rang they wouldn't.

dacouch

knightstyle wrote: »

We were in a similar position last year when wanting to insure a UK car after living in France for many years. Found a broker, Stuart Collins from Swansea, who got us insurance with AXA and took on our full NCB from France. Have heard that Direct Line will do it but when I rang they wouldn't.

Axa are a French owned company so do tend to accept French NCB and Stuart Collins specialise in oversea motor Insurance so are an obvious choice in your situation.

There are quite a few other Insurers who will accept overseas NCB, the normal requirement is that it is on the Insurers headed paper, is in English
and confirms what period you are claim free for