Car insurance NCB reduced following claim

SofiP

When I last renewed my car insurance a year ago I had 7 years NCB, the company I renewed with (Sheila's Wheels) capped this at 5 years which I now understand is not uncommon. Unfortunately I had to make a claim this year after my car caught fire due to an electrical fault, and my NCB has been reduced by 3 years. Now my renewal has come up again and the documentation shows that I only have 2 years NCB (3 deducted from 5), this feels pretty unfair as I actually started with 7 so shouldn't I be left with 4 years NCB after the deduction?

Is there any value in me pursuing this with the insurance company? Will I be able to get them to acknowledge the original 7 years NCB, either to renew with themselves or to look elsewhere?

paddyandstumpy

It's fairly consistent industry practice to reduce to 3 years following a fault claim (i.e. one where a full recovery of costs can't be made).

The 5 or 7 years is a moot point in this regard.

Are you sure your renewal shows you back to two years? Does the policy book give a scale back table?

Aretnap

In times gone by it was the norm for NCD to be capped at 5 years. For good reason, as insurers aren't really very interested in whether you were a safe driver in the distant past - it's not very relevant to how you drive today.

Then as a marketing gimmick some insurers started to trumpet the fact that they'd recognise up to 9 (or in some cases more) years NCD. In practice that just meant that it took you more years to build up much the same discount, or at best that you got a tiny extra discount for each year beyond 5. But some customers seemed to think that they were getting recognition for their many years of safe driving, so it proved popular. But even the insurers that do recognise more than 5 years still generally reduce you to no more than 3 years if you have a claim. So it's unlikely that you'll find an insurer willing to credit you with more than 3 years next year, even if you did get something from Sheila's Wheels explaining the circumstances.

Sheila's Wheels' treatment of NCD is set out in their terms and conditions (Page 21). It seems that they are a little unusual in that they WILL let you keep more than 3 years NCD after a claim - but only if you've been a customer of theirs for several years.

As above though, they should be reducing it to 3 years, not 2.