Is this reduction of no claims bonus following accidents right?

ic

My partner was insured with Direct Line for many years, and had policy history as follows. At no point did he have no claims bonus protection:

2010 renewal: 7 years ncb
2010 fault accident
2011 renewal: 3 years ncb
2012 renewal: 4 years ncb
2012 one fault accident and one not-at-fault accident (other driver accepted full responsibility)
2013 renewal: 1 years ncb

Now I understand that the 7 years was treated as the max 5 years, so was reduced to 3 years as a loss of two years ncb. However, in 2012 there was one fault accident, but the ncb has been reduced by 3 years. Is that right, or should this years ncb allowance on the renewal actually be 2 years?

I found MoreThan publish their policy on reducing the ncb following a claim here (page 13), but I can't find such detailed information for Direct Line - just this brief mention.

forgotmyname

Max no claims is usually 5 when its comes to claims.

So whether you have 5, 6, 7 or 50 it will usually drop to 3.

Different insurers will probably vary but see it as 1 claim things happen. 2 claims your getting risky.

Too late now but maybe worth protecting your no claims when you get 4 years.

ic

Surely Direct Line must follow a prescribed system like MoreThan show in the document I linked? Why have Direct Line reduced the ncb by two years for one accident, and three years for another?

InsideInsurance

Phone them to check whats happened, normally they would have reduced it by 2 years for each incident which would have pushed you down to after your second fault accident.

zeon999

Yeah does seem odd, sounds like you already understand why they dropped 3 years the first time but normally its only 2 years so the second drop does seem incorrect, have you called them to double check its not a mistake?

ic

I think we'll have to. There's actually a complaint on-going at the moment with the ombudsman surrounding 2010 claim. That claim was still open two years later so direct line blocked my partner from taking ncb protection at the 2012 renewal - despite the renewal letter offering it. We've been totting up the status, had he been allowed the protection, he'd still have five years now - not just one year. Its only because of the ongoing complaint and digging out evidence for it we've realised the disparity. My partner has actually moved to another insurer and is no longer a customer of direct line - the last renewal was a couple of months ago.

Groan.

ic

Well been round the houses but we got it sorted. Direct Line had mistakenly reduced by three years instead of two, and my partner should have two years ncb now. It turns out they still had the none-fault claim open, even though it was fully resolved and paid up over a year ago. Why they'd reduced the premium by three years is anybodys guess, as they said if the claim was genuinely open, it should have been reduced by four years.

We've now got to wait for the proof to come through before sending it off to Aviva, who've confirmed they will backdate the change and refund anything owing.

Cheers for the pointers folks.