Difference between no claim discount protection and no claim discount guarantee

littlerock

I have two cars on my policy. I drive one and OH drives the other most of the time. One car insurance policy states No claim discount protection and the other No claim discount guarantee. What is difference?

agrinnall

Sounds like two ways of saying the same thing to me. Who are the two insurers?

littlerock

No it is one insurer and policy for two cars. So an insurance schedule document for each. One schedule says "You've chosen to add No claim discount guarantee" and the other says " You've chosen to add No Claim Discount Protection" and also ""You've chosen not to add "No claim discount guarantee". I have no recollection of doing either. It is with LV.

Aretnap

Generally no claims discount protection allows you to make a certain number of claims (something like 2 in a 3 year period) without reducing your no claims bonus. LV's guaranteed no claims discount seems to allow you to make as many claims as you like without affecting it (page 13). Both will cost you extra. Whether it's worth the extra cost depends on how many claims you think you're likely to make (and presumably you tend not to make very many if you've built up a decent NCD).

dacouch

The difference is thus.

Protected No Claims bonus is generally an agreement that providing you do not have more than two (Fault) claims in any three year period (Some Insurers stipulate five years which is not as good a deal) then they will continue allowing you maximum no claims bonus which is protected.

Guaranteed No Claims Bonus in theory provides you unlimited (Fault) claims with no limit on the period.

With either the Insurer may apply a loading to the premium for you having a claim but will still allow the maximum no claims bonus all the time you fit the criteria.

In theory Guaranteed no claims bonus is better as there's no limit to the amount of times you can claim. In reality you will be allowed around the same amount of claims as you would with protected no claims bonus before they stop allowing it.

With some Insurers guaranteed no claims bonus can mean they will refuse to offer renewal once you've had three or more or possibly two fault claims. The Insurers offering guaranteed eg More Than (RSA) etc are often picky on customers with claims so are more likely to not offer renewal than a company offering protected.

To summarise I would pick guaranteed no claims over protected no claims providing the premiums were basically the same and the rest of the cover was favourable