Please help - Directline ncd

carinsurancewoes

Hi all,

After taking advice from Martin Lewis to use Directline as car insurance provider Because of their January offers. my girlfriend was happy to have a below average premium. It was all going well until they declined her proof of no claims because it was in French (she is French and her policy was French) and added another £1000 to the premium! After some hard work and £60 to get an official translatio, we have just received a letter saying it has been refused again due to it not stating the details of the ncd. It does clearly state the start of her policy though and that she had never filed a claim.

If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it as I can't keep paying for translations to find that they will keep refusing them.

There is also the problem that they do not apparently accept emails or PDF print outs meaning that we have to correspond between ourselves, the French insurer, the translator and Directline.

Very stressful! Please help!

Thanks,

Joe

Sgt_Pepper_2

Does it state details of the no claims?

We've not read it and you haven't evidenced any.

Spiderham

Also do Direct Line even accept overseas NCD? Several insurance companies won't.

carinsurancewoes

Sgt_Pepper wrote: »

Does it state details of the no claims?

We've not read it and you haven't evidenced any.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. What are details of ncd? Surely a statement from her french insurer that she never made a claim and the date her policy started are the details of ncd?

carinsurancewoes

Spiderham wrote: »

Also do Direct Line even accept overseas NCD? Several insurance companies won't.

Hi,

They have not advised me that a French insurance company is not accepted in any correspondence and during telephone conversations and have advised me about getting a translation of the document. therefore I would imagine they have accepted it in the past.

olly300

carinsurancewoes wrote: »

Hi,

They have not advised me that a French insurance company is not accepted in any correspondence and during telephone conversations and have advised me about getting a translation of the document. therefore I would imagine they have accepted it in the past.

Unfortunately with Direct Line some of their operators have a tendency of not giving you the relevant answer if you don't ask the specific question you want to answer.

You therefore need to be proactive and ask exactly:
1. Do you accept overseas NCB from France, then
2. What exact information do I need to give you (then question them further on what exactly is the information they want from the old insurer), and finally,
3. Why did you not tell me this information before?

Have a pen and paper to hand and make sure you write down who you spoke to as well as the time and date of call.

If they reject the next copy of NCD after this then you need to follow their complaints process.

kynare

Having Checked Direct Lines web page it does summarise under the question 'Do you accept No Claim Discount (NCD) earned in a foreign country?'

We will only accept proof of NCD from the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland.
Proof of NCD must be:
Written in English.
Shown in the number of years and not as a percentage.
Issued by your previous UK insurer.

InsideInsurance

carinsurancewoes wrote: »

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. What are details of ncd? Surely a statement from her french insurer that she never made a claim and the date her policy started are the details of ncd?

No, that would give her declared claims history. NCD is separate to claims history as you can have a variety of reasons why the two are different from each other.

carinsurancewoes

kynare wrote: »

Having Checked Direct Lines web page it does summarise under the question 'Do you accept No Claim Discount (NCD) earned in a foreign country?'

We will only accept proof of NCD from the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland.
Proof of NCD must be:
Written in English.
Shown in the number of years and not as a percentage.
Issued by your previous UK insurer.

They have assured us on the phone that they do accept NCD from France.
My girlfriend has now sent two letters to her French policy. One asking to cancel her policy and the other asking for the original proof of NCD on headed paper including all the details required by DirectLine.
So we'll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile we're paying the additional £800 on our new policy with Directline which isn't ideal...

So the next step is to recieve that piece of paper, get a certified translation for it which cost us £60 last time, send it to DirectLine and hope they accept it! It's a right pain! :mad:

We'll keep you posted.

InsideInsurance

Could you not ask the french insurer if they can do an english translation? Sounds like it is going to be a non-standard letter and so they may well be able to type it up in English (obviously no grounds for complaint if they say no)

carinsurancewoes

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Could you not ask the french insurer if they can do an english translation? Sounds like it is going to be a non-standard letter and so they may well be able to type it up in English (obviously no grounds for complaint if they say no)

For the last paper they said they were enable to send an English version. They are only a small company and I doubt any of their employee speaks a good English.
Besides, DirectLine requires a certified translation.