Car insurance - Protected NCD

ArchieWW

I have just taken out car insurance with Aviva, with me (Gordon Bennett) as the Principal Policyholder and my wife (Mrs Bennett) as the Named Driver. In the past, I have assumed that my wife and I both benefit from the protected NCD status, but on reading the Policy Schedule small print (doesn’t everyone do that?), I see that it states that ‘NCD is owned by Mr Gordon Bennett’, which seems to mean that if I have an accident, our NCD will be protected, but if my wife has an accident, our NCD will not be.protected and the premium will rise the following year. Is my understanding correct, or am I misinterpreting this?

mark5

I read it as your wife has got no ndc entitlement from the policy if she were to take out her own policy.

Bongles

I don't think that's what it means. You have one policy, with two drivers - the Principal (yourself) and the Named Driver (your wife). That policy has a protected NCD, which means that if a claim is made on that policy then the NCD will still apply to next year's renewal quote. It doesn't matter which driver makes the claim because there is only one policy and only one NCD associated with that policy.

The bit about the NCD applying to you is I think only relevant if you and your wife want to arrange your insurance differently in future. For example, if you decided you were going to stop driving and your wife therefore needed to start a policy in her own name, she could not use the NCD because it is yours not hers. If between you you had two cars and in future decided that you would insure one and she would insure the other, you could use the NCD on the policy you started, but she could not.

That's my understanding. The insurance company is in a better position than me or anyone else here to provide a definitive answer, so it would probably be a good idea to check with them.

ArchieWW

Thank you both for your very helpful advice. Bongles' fuller reply was particularly useful.

[Deleted User]

ArchieWW wrote: »

I have just taken out car insurance with Aviva, with me (Gordon Bennett) as the Principal Policyholder and my wife (Mrs Bennett) as the Named Driver. In the past, I have assumed that my wife and I both benefit from the protected NCD status, but on reading the Policy Schedule small print (doesn’t everyone do that?), I see that it states that ‘NCD is owned by Mr Gordon Bennett’, which seems to mean that if I have an accident, our NCD will be protected, but if my wife has an accident, our NCD will not be.protected and the premium will rise the following year. Is my understanding correct, or am I misinterpreting this?

Hi ArchieWW,

Bongles summed it up well. NCD protection is a level of cover which applies to the policy with each driver benfiting from it. It's not limited to the owner of the NCD.

In terms of ownership of the discount, if you were to leave us and move to another insurer for example; we would provide proof of NCD to you. Any policy you then go and set up elsewhere would need to be in your name (as it's you who owns it and not your wife) to benefit from the NCD you've built up.

I hope this helps. If you'd like me to look at your policy specifically and go into more details, feel free to email me the following information to [EMAIL="social@aviva.co.uk"]social@aviva.co.uk[/EMAIL] :

• Full name
• Date of birth
• Postcode
• Policy number

Kind regards,

Martin