Insurer cancelling policy. Driver can't have 4 years no claims on more than one car

Chomerly

Hi all,

The insurer (RAC) for my wife's car has stated that they were going to be cancelling the policy on the vehicle because she has active insurance on another one.
The say it's because she has 4 years no claims on the second vehicle, with a different insurer (Co-Op), but this insurer (RAC) will only allow her to have those 4 years on 1 vehicle so they are going to cancel it unless we either cancel the insurance policy on the second vehicle or re-quote, at a much higher premium, without the no claims for the first.

I couldn't get my head around this and i spoke with the rep myself trying to clarify why they would do this.
My understanding is that the person driving accumulates the no claims and not the car.
After around 10 minutes of skirting around the answer, he said that it's because the underwriters give a 'substantial' discount anyway so they will only ever allow the driver to accumulate a no claims discount on one car at any one time unless the driver accumulates it again, starting from zero, and working it up that way.

I asked if that is the case then does it work the opposite way around.
If she accumulates further no claims on the first vehicle, starting from zero, can that be tallied up if she decided to sell the one vehicle?
I.e. 4 years on one car and two years on another = 6 years no claims total.

He said no.

I'm quite the layman when it comes to insurance, which i have no doubt goes for many others, but if we had known this was going to be the case from the outset we would not have taken out the insurance quoting the details of having 4 years no claims.

Is it possible to get a refund of the deposit and the first monthly instalment so that we can get the car insured properly this time without anything like this cropping up?

bouncydog1

No claims are accumulated "per policy". Your wife has one policy so she has one set of no claims that she is already using on one car.

You now have another car and so need a policy to cover that, but if you transfer the no claims from the policy on the first car, the first car will have no bonus to reduce the cost.

The RAC shouldn't be cancelling the policy because your wife has insurance on another car. They should be quoting the price without no claims. Who is going to be the main driver on the second car? If it is yourself then you could ask for an introductory bonus, assuming you have been driving a while. If it is a young driver then this is clearly a case of fronting, which is why the RAC may be taking this route. Need a bit more info please.

Also if your wife accumulates 4 years bonus on one policy and 2 years on another, that is what she has - she cannot add it together to make 6.

forgotmyname

As above really, Problem now is if they are going to cancel the policy you will need to declare that when taking out a new one.

Which wont help with your premiums.


If you dont declare that and they find out, Then thats another cancelled policy.

Measuring the distance from the earth to the moon in inches will give you smaller numbers than
the insurance quotes after having a policy cancelled for non disclosure.

kittiej

I don't understand why you would want a refund? You will just need to pay the extra when the policy is amended.

We have the same issue due to having 3 cars, 2 policies have NCB and one doesn't as it is less than a year.

System

Some insurers let named drivers build up their own NCD.

My wife was a named driver on my (full NCD) policy with Privilege. When we got a second car we insured it with Privilege and they gave her a full NCD, a second car discount, and an introductory bonus.

When she later switched to another insurer they honoured the NCD she had built up with Privilege.

Chomerly

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the replies.
Both me and my wife are not new drivers.
We both have a combined driver experience of over 24 years.
Me having nearly 7 and she having 16.
She has the 4 years no claims and i only have two from around 4 years ago.
I am also the named driver.

The RAC is cancelling policy on the basis of my wife not having the quoted 4 years no claims.
The amended policy from RAC was just shy of £1200 when she spoke to them earlier.
She asked if they could match the quote she had gotten from Insure-Wise? which was a little under £559. about £80'ish more than the quote from the RAC.
She was told that they don't do quote matching.

So, this where it has left us.
She did ask for a refund because, as i said in my previous post, the reason we took out the insurance was because of the competitive quote we had received.
Had i have known that the four years no claims could be applied to this second policy i would have re-quoted as a driver with zero no claims bonus.

She was told that she couldn't get a refund because we were cancelling the policy but the rep was corrected and told that they were cancelling.
The rep also said that we have to pay a cancellation fee of £75 :mad:
They were duly told no.

I can't help but feel that we have been done somehow.
It isn't clear in their T&C's that a driver can only have the no claims bonus applied to one vehicle, even though it is the policy holder who accumulates this.
Now we're being told we can't get a refund and WE owe them.
And to top it off, just as Forgotmyname has stated, the cancellation will have to be declared now and that will most likely increase the premiums.

Ever feel like you're taking a kicking from all sides?

JimmyTheWig

Unfortunately, those are the rules.
Interesting, as it came up on a thread here last week. Someone had done it and got away with it and thought it was the norm. It's not. Lets hope the OP on that thread went with the majority rather than the poster who had done it.

As for you, you need to do something about this quick.
From your OP it sounds like you have two choices to avoid them cancelling the policy.
I agree with what's been said that you don't want to end up with a cancelled policy. So do everything you can to make one of those two choices work.

Are RAC saying that if you cancel the Co-op policy then they'll be happy?
Have you tried doing this?
How far through the year is the Co-op policy? How have you paid? How long have you been with them?
I would like to think that you would be able to cancel the Co-op policy fairly easily. Unless you've been with them for more than a year I would expect some sort of cancellation policy (3 months premiums, maybe) but you could then quote for that car based on either no NCB or insure it in your name with 2 years NCB.
Be aware the rules about fronting if you're putting it in your name. You don't want to get yourselves in further trouble!

Chomerly

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Unfortunately, those are the rules.
Interesting, as it came up on a thread here last week. Someone had done it and got away with it and thought it was the norm. It's not. Lets hope the OP on that thread went with the majority rather than the poster who had done it.

As for you, you need to do something about this quick.
From your OP it sounds like you have two choices to avoid them cancelling the policy.
I agree with what's been said that you don't want to end up with a cancelled policy. So do everything you can to make one of those two choices work.

Are RAC saying that if you cancel the Co-op policy then they'll be happy?
Have you tried doing this?
How far through the year is the Co-op policy? How have you paid? How long have you been with them?
I would like to think that you would be able to cancel the Co-op policy fairly easily. Unless you've been with them for more than a year I would expect some sort of cancellation policy (3 months premiums, maybe) but you could then quote for that car based on either no NCB or insure it in your name with 2 years NCB.
Be aware the rules about fronting if you're putting it in your name. You don't want to get yourselves in further trouble!

Hi buddy,

I don't know what fronting is if i'm honest.
In fact, until today, i have never heard of the term being used.

We've been with the Co-op on the one car since the end of May this year and pay by monthly instalments.
RAC are happy to continue as is if the other insurance policy is cancelled but It isn't an option to cancel the policy as the second vehicle isn't suitable for my line of work.

The second was insured on November 26th, shortly after we got the car.

vax2002

Does your wifes policy not offer third party cover on the other insured car anyway ?
Why pay twice ?

Chomerly

vax2002 wrote: »

Does your wifes policy not offer third party cover on the other insured car anyway ?
Why pay twice ?

Hi,

The issue is that they say my wife can not have 4 years on the first car we have and also have 4 years on the second car.

The only reason given was that the underwriters give a discount on one policy but won't do it for a second as they would lose to much money.

And that above line is pretty much an exact quote of what he said.

dunstonh

The issue is that they say my wife can not have 4 years on the first car we have and also have 4 years on the second car.

Which is correct. You build up your entitlement per car. i.e. if you have a car each then you both build up your NCD on your own policies. However, if you then buy a third car (and keep the other two), then you will not be able to use your NCD built up on your first car on the new car. You start from scratch (although consideration is given in pricing to your clean history).

My understanding is that the person driving accumulates the no claims and not the car.

It is but on a per car basis. As she is trying it with a second car, then she has to start the second one from scratch.