Budget Car Insurance- loss of no claims

Kaye1

Any advice appreciated!


Still raging!


I will try and keep it simple.


Hubby and I never had an accident, so insurance fairly low.


Last year he insured his with Hastings, I went with Budget Car Insurance.


We effective share our cars- if I am driving further away, I take the one that is petrol economical, and vice versa.


So when I was filling out my insurance, I put him as the main driver because he does marginally more driving in the Volvo than I do.


All ok- no claims sent in, accepts etc. Then I get a phone call from Budget.


It is about my insurance- as your husband is main driver, we will need proof of his no claims. I say- 'Well he insures another car. Is that ok?.' They say 'yes that's fine.' Then they say- 'or we could just use your no claims in his name.'
I am worried about losing the continuous no claims bonus as I wont effectively be insuring this car. They say no problem.


I then ask if they can just re-do everything with me as the main driver- the person on the phone just makes out that is a lot of paper work and this is just a minor thing I need to agree to.


So I double check- "I won't lose all of my no claims if I agree to this will I?" (I wasn't sure if you needed to continually insure a car to retain it.) They assured me it was fine. I asked again, just to make sure.


Fast forward to today- on renewal, I have been told I have completely lost my no claims as I transferred them to my husband.


Budget just kept saying you transferred them away- my point to them was this- if we both had full no claims, why would I transfer them to my husband? Secondly, if I had known, I would have just made them re-do the policy. I also asked them for the recording that they state they make of the call- no avail.


They just kept repeating that I had transferred them. They were very slow in giving me the customer services address and refused to transfer me to a manager.


If I have lost my no claims, I basically can't afford to insure the car as I am on a tight budget.


I have hopefully tried to make the above clear! Any advice helpful please.

Quentin

Raise a formal complaint. Follow the complaints procedure set out in the policy docs. This will have the correct address for complaints.

If you are unhappy with their reply then you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you.

SuperHan

No claims tend to last for at least 1 year.

It may be worth when you approach a new insurer to use your last renewal document before Budget Car Insurance as your proof of no claims, and if necessary the Budget Car Insurance documents to show you have not had an accident since.

AFAIK (and I may be wrong), there isn't a centralised no-claims system where you give away no claims, with most insurers you just need to be able to prove that you haven't crashed/claimed in the specified period...

That way you have only lost the last year, where you weren't technically insuring the car anyway, so wouldn't have been building up a NCD anyway.

(Please correct if I am wrong!!!)

OnanTheBarbarian

Odds are the "customer services" dept is part of the call centre at Minster Law solicitors, who are owned by Budget Insurance.

Just follow Quentin's advice and see where that takes matters, doesn't help you in the interim as far as getting insured is concerned.

If you "transferred your NCD" less than 2 years ago and still have the proof of the NCD entitlement you had when you went with Budget, presumably you could go elsewhere and use this still?

Kaye1

Yes, thanks Quentin. I will sit down tonight and compose! OnantheBarbarian- I did wonder about that; however, I was a bit worried as any discrepancies can cause trouble. I don't need the car insured until Friday but probably won't get a reply until then.
SuperHan- I do have the documents so it may be worth a try.


What really annoyed me was even though I was polite, asked for them to escalate to manager, asked for customer service etc, it was like a brick wall. I couldn't even make the lady see that there was nothing to be gained me transferring my no claims to my husband as we both have the 9 years +


The advice is most useful, and I shall certainly write and complain tonight. I'll let you know!

keith1950

Hi, excuse me if I misunderstand the situation but from what you have stated he has his own NCB on his original car and they tranferred your NCB to him to use as main driver on what is effectively your car......therefore at renewal on each, he should be provided with 2 separate proofs of NCB in his name therefore although you have lost your NCB you can still insure 2 cars .

Nothing has really changed unless you split up then your stuffed .

rs65

Kaye1 wrote: »

They just kept repeating that I had transferred them.

If I read that right, they had to transfer the NCB because he was the main driver.

Make yourself the main driver this year and transfer it back to you.

Kaye1

rs65 wrote: »

If I read that right, they had to transfer the NCB because he was the main driver.

Make yourself the main driver this year and transfer it back to you.

They won't let me. To be honest, I was quite happy with the quote they gave me, but I thought if I didn't use my NCB I would lose it. So I rang up to transfer myself back as the main driver.


I thought it would be a quick call- 'can you transfer me back as main driver and I am happy to renew.' It was not- I was on for about 30 mins trying to get some sense out of someone. As mentioned they wouldn't transfer me though to anyone else.


My point to the lady was that at no point did they say- if you put him as main driver, you will lose you NCB. We have full NCB so there was no need for us to risk losing it. As Martin Lewis said about complaining, be polite- but it was super hard when they would not even acknowledge my point. I am hoping that I will be able to insure elsewhere. (Hoping maybe in vain!)

Kaye1

keith1950 wrote: »

Hi, excuse me if I misunderstand the situation but from what you have stated he has his own NCB on his original car and they tranferred your NCB to him to use as main driver on what is effectively your car......therefore at renewal on each, he should be provided with 2 separate proofs of NCB in his name therefore although you have lost your NCB you can still insure 2 cars .

Nothing has really changed unless you split up then your stuffed .

Hi Keith1950,
No they didn't ask for his NCB proof, just over the phone. His is with his own insurer.

keith1950

Hi again....the point I was trying to make is that I have 2 cars and each year I get 2 separate proofs of NCB......so in your case although you won't have any NCB you he should now get 2 separate proofs.