Company Car to private, No claims and Insurance

antony_

Hi
My company car comes to an end in October after 4 years. I don't want to get another one, I'd rather have the flexibility that comes with having my own car.
How does the no claims work. I gather many insurers will take the 4 years into account (I had 9 years ncb before that) but what about the timing? Ideally I want to get the new car in September, does it matter that there will be a one month overlap with having the cars from an insurers point of view?

thanks

AdrianC

Not really an issue, because anything other than "zero" (which is what you actually have, right now) is merely a marketing incentive to get your business. Your own NCB history expired after two years unused, and you have no right to anything from your employer's policy.

When the lease on your particular car ends is unrelated to whenever your employer's insurance (which'll cover all their vehicles, or a good subset of them) is up for renewal, anyway.

jimjames

When I switched back to private from company car, my employer provided a letter to confirm that I'd been accident free for over 4 years which the insurer took as proof of clean claim record. That was 10 years ago but it should still be the case now.

YorkshireTraveller

jimjames wrote: »

When I switched back to private from company car, my employer provided a letter to confirm that I'd been accident free for over 4 years which the insurer took as proof of clean claim record. That was 10 years ago but it should still be the case now.

Exactly the same for me, new insurers accepted this as proof of NCD.

mije1983

jimjames wrote: »

When I switched back to private from company car, my employer provided a letter to confirm that I'd been accident free for over 4 years which the insurer took as proof of clean claim record. That was 10 years ago but it should still be the case now.

Same for my Dad when he retired last year after 15+ years of having a company car.

Aretnap

Some insurers will accept evidence of claim free years on a company car and credit you with NCB or give you a roughly equivalent discount for it. However it's not universal and you may have to do a bit of phoning around to find one who will. Suggest you get a quote on a price comparison site with the number of years NCB you think you "ought" to have, then phone the most competitive few insurers, speak to a real person, explain your situation and see which will honour the online quite.

alleycat`

I did this recently and it's an utter !!!!.

What they will accept and how the letter has to be worded is very subjective.

In the end Direct Line turned out to be the easiest to deal with, although they were slightly more expensive than a couple of the others.

Thing to watch for:

A couple of the places i spoke to will accept the letter as an introductory value but will reset you back to 1 year - i.e. they don't honour it going forward and wipe out what you had.

In essence you'll get the shaft in year 2 no matter if you move or not.

antony_

alleycat` wrote: »

I did this recently and it's an utter !!!!.

What they will accept and how the letter has to be worded is very subjective.

In the end Direct Line turned out to be the easiest to deal with, although they were slightly more expensive than a couple of the others.

Thing to watch for:

A couple of the places i spoke to will accept the letter as an introductory value but will reset you back to 1 year - i.e. they don't honour it going forward and wipe out what you had.

In essence you'll get the shaft in year 2 no matter if you move or not.

Just to be clear, did Direct Line give you 4 years NCB in year 2 or was that the others?

alleycat`

Direct line give you what it says on the letter.
The only thing they warned me of is:-

* You can't protect the NCB in the first year.
* In year 2 you will only have the same value NCB as they accepted in year 1 but you can protect it going forward.
* In year 3 your NCB will go up by an additional year.


All the above assumes you make no claims

In your case it should be:-

4 years NCB (not protected).
4 years NCB (with option to protect)
5 years NCB, etc.

A couple of the others i spoke to would give you 4 years "introductory discount" in the first year but in year 2 it would be reduced to 1 years credited NCB.

The big key is getting the "language" on the letter agreed.
Different underwriters expected it to say different things.

InsideInsurance

Some insurers do have formal marketing offers on those with company history, like Direct Line, and this makes things easier as you can read the terms and conditions. Others dont have formal external policies but may well accept them.

The overlap will possibly make an issue but again this will come down to individual discussions with the insurers involved. Some insurers are more flexible than others/ will do more to win business than others. When I bought my current car it was in May and my existing policy was to renew in August. Mercedes Insurance offered to give credit for the 6 years NCD I would have had come the August renewal in May as a sweetener to switching mid term to them rather than doing a simple change of vehicle with my current insurer.

antony_

An update for anyone else who stumbles on this.

I did a comparethemarket search based on 0 years NCD but having sole access to a company car, then I phoned a few insurers who came top. However in general they didn't like the 1 month overlap between getting a new car and still having the old so wouldn't take into account the 4 years NCD letter from my company. NB they would have if there wasn't an overlap,

However I then did the same thing based on no company car, Privilege came high on the list. I phoned them and explained the circumstances and they said they would just ignore the company car completely, so ignore the NCD, and the quote from them based on 0 years NCD was in the same ball park as that I was getting with the 4 years NCD :-)