Does driver NCD always expire after two years? With all insurers?

Tunstallstoven

I have just spoken to Admiral (twice) on the phone and they have confirmed that they accept NCD up to three years old rather than the usual two years. They came in cheapest as well, so I'm very pleased about that

There's no mention of it here:

https://www.admiral.com/magazine/guides/car-insurance/how-the-no-claims-bonus-works#

...which is why I ended up calling about it twice. I have issues with trust when it comes to things like this!!

On a separate note, that page says the average discount for 6 years NCD is 31%. 9 years plus is 40%. So I asked why when I compared zero NCD with 10 years NCD the quoted price changed from £171 to £162; a mere 5%. They answered that this is because the percentages quoted on the website are an average. Hmmm.... That would mean that to balance things out some people out there would need to be getting discounts in the 70-80% region. I doubt that! Or are they???

Like I said above, I'm just glad I've never wasted money on protecting my NCD seeing as it makes such an insignificant difference....

msallen

Part of the cost of insurance will cover administration and part will be the actual cover (and other parts will be the profit etc).

On a policy as cheap as £171 the administration costs will make up a large chunk of that hence the bottom line discount will look much smaller. However a policy costing say £1000 would only have the same admin costs.

Using some totally made up figures as illustration....
If your £171 policy is £100 admin, and 20% gross profit (~£34) that leaves £37 for actuarial cover. £9 is roughly 25% discount on that.
If a £1000 policy had the same £100 admin and 20% gross profit (£200) then a 25% discount against the remaining £700 actuarial cover would be £175, which would look like a discount of between 3 and 4 times as large on the price paid by the driver, even though it included exactly the same level of discount on the cover itself.

When the insurance company quotes average discounts (against the end user cost) then this average will always be made up of smaller discounts on cheaper policies and larger discounts on more expensive policies.

Tunstallstoven

Good thinking and nice explanation It's a shame you don't work for Admiral. I you did you could have added that info to the "No Claims Bonus - read how it works to give you discount" rather than choosing to leave it out and just quote large percentages...

Seriously though, thanks for the explanation.

Tunstallstoven

Aviva only accept NCD up to two years old. However, if i go with someone like Admiral for the next year - who will accept my 2.5 year old NCD (7 years worth) - I can then go with Aviva next year who would accept my NCD at that stage (all 8 years of it by then).

Slightly absurd but good to know.

Placitasgirl

Quentin wrote: »

From Direct Line website :

"Your NCD must have been used on a policy within the last 2 years to be valid"

Also from the Direct Line Website;

Your NCD must have been used on a policy within the last 2 years to be valid. However, we will accept NCD within the last 3 years if we were the last insurer.

They didn't make it clear when I got my quote that the acceptance of my 9yrs NCD which was three years old was because they were my last insurers.

I stand corrected in the OPs case, but hope this might be of help to some.