Car Insurance Protected NCD - Worth it after 2 claims in 3 years?

def_toned

Hi all,

I've had an unlucky weekend and unfortunately hit another car at a junction (no injuries, nothing serious, just a galling crunch and some impressive looking dents).

My insurance is due for renewal at the beginning of May. I have protected NCD (6 years) but made a fault claim previously in March 2012. By making this next fault claim in April 2014, I will have made two claims within the past three years.

Under the terms of my policy, the NCD protection will be lost if I make another claim before March 2015, as that will mean that I have made more than 2 claims in the preceding three years.

So my question is this, at renewal, is there any benefit to paying to continue to protect my NCD? My understanding is that if I have an accident before March 2015, I will lose my NCD regardless of whether I've paid £36 to protect it.

If I don't make a claim in the next period of insurance (fingers crossed!!) I can then protect my NCD again at renewal in May 2015; by then the 2012 accident will have slipped from the three year claim history. So by my calculation, the only possible benefit to protecting my NCD this year is if I have a fault claim between March 2015 and renewal in May 2015 (approx. a six week period). I think that's a risk I'm prepared to run for the sake of £36, I will just avoid taking the car out if possible!

Before I go ahead and confirm with insurance though I just wanted to bounce my reasoning off of the wise and experienced heads on this board - your advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give! And yes, I know that the best advice is to not have accidents, but please don't be too cruel about my driving ability or lack thereof

arcon5

Personally I'd rather pay the rather nominal sum for piece of mind during the said period.

But this seems to be one of those situations where it's each to their own. Nothing wrong in your logic

dacouch

Generally the two claims in the three year period means you go back to maximum no claims bonus but with no protection so any future claims would affect your no claims bonus in the normal way eg reduce it by two years.

If you don't pay for the protected no claims, some Insurers will treat your policy as being unprotected and reduce the no claims bonus to what it would have been without protection eg you would have nil or one years no claims bonus.

It really depends on what your own Insurer says.

If you go to a new Insurer you're likely to have nil or one or two years no claims bonus