Keeping your NCD?

kaneno1

I am in the process of renewing my car insurance and have realised that I may be losing out. I have not made a claim in about 12 years but because I always shop around at renewal time and each company has a different maximum no claims discount period I have only been transferring whatever NCD that is shown on my renewal quotation. For example if I have ten years NCD but the maximum discount period my new company quote on is five years then at the end of that year then my renewal notice will show 5 years no claims discount and not the 11 years I should be entitled to (ie to use for my new quote).

Basicly my question is will insurance companies accept a serious of renewal papers, from different years, that would show a continuous run of 11 years with no claims.

I hope this is making sense.

Any thoughts appreciated.

DUTR

I think you have quoted the understanding incorrectly.
EG my insurers give a maximum of 75% when a certain level of NCB is achieved, the fact that I have exceeded the years is still shown along with the discounted rate.

Ultrasonic

Interesting question. Provided the question is along the lines of 'How many years NCD do you have?', I thought you could only state whatever it says on your renewel, and this is what I do. But I'm now curious what others think/know.

Not that I suspect it makes a massive difference to insurance premiums for the sort of different numbers of years we're talking about.

andygb

This is a very interesting question, and one which used to be easy to answer, and I am glad that the OP has started this thread.
I have just received the renewal notice on my insurance (just for me) on our second car, and it was very high, so I have shopped around and found a much better deal (under half the renewal amount!!) with another company.
However, the new company does things the sensible way - years NCD, but the old company mentions a percentage - in my case 67%, which makes no sense at all to me, as I have never had a claim.
So, is it now the case that you have to trawl through all the old renewal notices (I suspect many people like myself now shop around each year), and piece together a "forensic" trail of your NCD history?
As the insurance industry are able to find out other pieces of information, should the NCD be their responsibility to research?

Norman_Castle

I get quotes based on what I can prove. Currently 12 years from 3 insurers. Aviva recently only accepted me as a driver with a minimum 5 years ncd. When I moved to another insurer two years later, without claim, they gave me 5 years ncd?. I understand with many insurers it makes no difference but with some it does.

waspsandjam

I had a similar problem just over a year ago. Co-incidentally also when moving away from Aviva.
At the time, I asked for them to re-issue a letter saying that i had 5 years NCD when i came to them and had made no claims in the two years i was with them. This was accepted by my current insurer as proof of NCD.
I think talking it through with your current / next insurance provider is the way to go on this (and getting it sorted sooner rather than later). I suspect there are different requirements for different insurers.

Mrs_Imp

Shop around!

I was driving on a policy which didn't have a NCD. Most companies didn't care that I'd had over 10 years claim-free, they just put 'no NCD' in to their computers.

I used comparethemarket, and when I ticked the 'none' to the NCD box I was basically asked if I could prove I hadn't claimed, and for how many years. It came back with a few companies that would insure me. A quick telephone call to Chaucer Direct, and they confirmed that a letter from my insurance company stating that I'd been driving without claiming would be sufficient for them.

My insurance quote went down from £1500 to £280!

Mu insurance company were happy to provide the letter needed, and even offered to e-mail it to me.

stormCat99

Yes you can use multiple NCD documents to prove a longer NCD.

I didn't even realise until I got past 5 years' NCD, that some insurers only count up to 5. So at the end of the year you just get a document saying you are still on 5 years, and not 6.

Found that this isn't a problem, as my new insurer each year has always been happy to accept whatever proof I can provide. Sometimes that has had to be say a NCD proof document from a couple of years back, stating say, 8 years' NCD.

Plus my last 2 year's documents stating no claims made = total of 10 years.

It is a big pain. And I've learnt to scan in each proof of NCD as it arrives, so I have them all easily to hand ready for next year's renewal.

scaredofdebt

I realised this was happening to me a few years back.

I had around 20 years driving experience, never having a claim but by official NCD was only around 8 years or so.

Different companies have different upper limits you see!

I now keep a copy of my proof of NCD every time I change insurers (every year pretty much) and then make sure it's increased by the relevant number of years when they send the next proof.

Some companies will take your word for it to some extent, I've now got 21 years NCD in writing, it should actually be 26 years but I won't quibble over the extra 5 as it makes very little difference in reality.

sheepyj

I've just realised I've fallen foul of this too.....I've been driving claim free for over 25 years but my current renewal states only 9 years ncd.

Using a comparison website earlier I've discovered a £40 difference in prices just by changing the ncd from 13 years (what I thought I could prove) to 9 years (what I can actually prove).

It's frustrating that my ncd will hopefully show 10 years in 2 weeks' time but my renewal will still only prove 9 years as it was issued before the current policy expires.

This must be costing motorists a fortune! I will now make sure I keep written copies of my ncd for future use.

As stated earlier in this thread, different companies accept different maximum years of ncd entitlement and we've been lead to believe that this doesn't really matter. But, as I've seen for myself today, it does matter. Shouldn't this be standardised on all applications to ensure the consumer is not being ripped off?

redpete

RAC would only use the number of years from the most recent insurer - they were not interested in previous policies that showed a greater number of total NC years.