NO claims discount wiped after 2 years non-driving? Dilema .... Please help!

James_Bond

Hi there,

Im planning on going away in june, for quite possibly 2 years.

However, my insurance expires in july..... And ive just sold my car so wont be driving now for maybe 2 years +

I rang up aviva today to cancel my insurance and they said i was entitled to £61 ( fair enough)

However, i was thinking of keeping the insurance going for the sake of an extra year no claims bonus ( which would take mine to 5). This is a dlilema in itself.

However, perhas more interestingly, the guy on the phone said that if i didnt drive for 2 years , id lose all of my no claims bonus, and id have to start on 0 in 2 years time!!!!! Ive not heard of this rule before..... Although the guy did say he couldnt speak for other insurance companies... Just aviva.

Has anyone heard of this rule before. What do you think of my dilema? Shall i cash in the £61?

Many thanks in advance for any replies :money:

rodenal

It's standard practice - I believe some companies will give you 3 years though. Something to be aware of is that if you were to take a policy out in say a year and a half, send away your current proof and then cancel the policy after say 1 month you will be able to ask for another proof of no claims dated 1.5 years after the first one.

Lithian

2 options.

1) lose your bonus
2) buy a car and pay for insurance

Best thing to do is to figure out what the costs are

If you have a few years of driving and haven't claimed then insurance should be fairly reasonable even without actual NCB. Run some quotes on comparison sites for the sort of car you imagine you will have when you come back with both 5 years and 0 years. Might be less expensive than you think? You must at least 22 now and 24 by the time you come back so a sensible car shouldn't cost too much to insure anyway

You could buy a cheap car, sorn it and insure it and still build ncb, you may have to arrange transport to somewhere off the road to store it though and you will have to tie up some money with it (and sell it/scrap it while abroad). This is probably quite a bit of hassle for what will probably only be a small amount saved

Quentin

Losing the bonus would be cheaper overall than paying for a car and the insurance (but not using the car)!

At present there is one insurer I know that will take NCD that is up to 3 years old (CIS), though whether they will still be doing this when you are back in UK is anybody's guess!

thenudeone

Lithian wrote: »

2 options.

1) lose your bonus
2) buy a car and pay for insurance

You forgot option 3):
Find a close relative (the closer the better, eg: spouse) with a car and agree with them that you will insure their car with them as the main driver but with you as the policyholder, for 1 year (in around a year's time).

The bit in bold is very important. You must answer all questions from insurers 100% honestly.

Whether this is worthwhile for you both depends on their NCD and driving history, their insurance costs, and whether they trust you implicity (after all, you could cancel the policy leaving them uninsured) but it starts the 2 year life of a NCD all over again at the end of that year.

property.advert

My base premium is around £1000 but without any NCD you get around 30% off. 5 years may be 60% so you are talking about £300 on a £1000 policy.

The idea of buying a car and insuring it or working out some illegal angle is not worth the hassle for a little bit of money.

Take the refund and forget about it.

rodenal

property.advert wrote: »

My base premium is around £1000 but without any NCD you get around 30% off. 5 years may be 60% so you are talking about £300 on a £1000 policy.

The idea of buying a car and insuring it or working out some illegal angle is not worth the hassle for a little bit of money.

Take the refund and forget about it.

Nothing remotely illegal has been suggested here as far as I can tell - I agree though that it is probably more hassle than it's worth.

prowla

I got caught out by this last year - we had a spare car but I never used it and so let it go.
My son then got a car and we tried to use the old one's NCB, but it had expired.

benjus

I lost my NCD because of not driving for 2 years. When I got my new policy (from Admiral) I told them that I had an expired NCD and they gave me 2 years NCD as a goodwill gesture. So it's worth shopping around a bit if you do find yourself in that situation.

knightstyle

Well when we wanted to insure a UK car after 10 years abroad Direct Line still had all our details and gave us half our NCD on the new car. This was a few years ago mind.

richard734

Similar story here - when I returned to the UK, Norwich Union were the only people who would accept my Belgian issurance NCD letter. They did and didnt penanlise me at all.