Car insurance

gletley

Hopefully someone can advice me. My husband has given up driving due to being diagnosed with AMD, so I am now the only driver. I'm 66 years old, have been driving since I was 21 years old, but have not had my own car for ten years. I have been a named driver on my husbands insurance and have done most of the driving for at least the last two years. I have no points or convictions, not been involved in any accidents or even had a parking ticket, but in March our car insurance has to be renewed and it will have to be in my name and because I have not owned a car for some years and only been a named driver, I have been told I will be regarded as a first time driver. Can anyone advice me on this please, if I will be regarded as a first time driver and what sort of price will I be looking at to cover me, what would be the best insurance company to approach, we are with Churchill at the moment, will it be worth using a comparison site again. Would appreciate any help, thank you in advance.

Savvy_Sue

I think insurance companies take different approaches to this, and it may be worth using a broker, as well as comparison sites. It may be worth changing policy sooner than March.

Couple of questions:

Have you told the current insurer that you're now the only driver?

Is there another driver in the family? If you look at the guide to car insurance on the main site, it can help to add another 'good' driver, even if they never do - adult child, perhaps?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/motor-insurance/

400ixl

Speak to your current provider first and ask if they will do an introductory NCD for you to switch you across to the main driver.

Farway

I second the advice to speak with your current insurer first, far easier to explain

DullGreyGuy

Some insurers will switch the NCD in cases like this but they are under no obligation and its more common in the case of bereavement than illness. 

There is little point in "asking for" an introductory discount as when they were legal insurers would automatically apply them and given the rule changes for renewing customers I am not sure if they are technically allowed any more. 

Albermarle

Not sure if this will help, but I had a sort of similar situation last year. After years of being a company car driver, I retired and bought my own car. As I had been on the company insurance, I had no personal NCD, although having driven many more miles than average for many accident free years. After some research it seemed that two insurance companies took a more benevolent view than others;  LV= & Direct Line. The former was willing to give me something like 6 years NCD. As a guess I would say this maybe reduced the premium by 50%?
Whether that would apply in this case, I have no idea.
OP - Don't forget that you are the customer, and normally they want your business, or in the case of Churchill they will hopefully want to keep your business.

DullGreyGuy

Unfortunately moving from company car to personal car is much more common an occurrence to the extent that the aggregators even allow you to declare your NCD comes from a company car so it can automatically show prices including those that allow you to transfer company car across.

Trying to switch a spouses NCD due to death or ill health is much rarer and not catered for in the same way.

Albermarle

DullGreyGuy said:

Unfortunately moving from company car to personal car is much more common an occurrence to the extent that the aggregators even allow you to declare your NCD comes from a company car so it can automatically show prices including those that allow you to transfer company car across.

Trying to switch a spouses NCD due to death or ill health is much rarer and not catered for in the same way.

OK fair comment.

By the way, some of the providers offering to transfer NCD from a company car, only do it for one year, and then for the second year, you then only have one years NCD. Sneaky !

DullGreyGuy

Albermarle said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Unfortunately moving from company car to personal car is much more common an occurrence to the extent that the aggregators even allow you to declare your NCD comes from a company car so it can automatically show prices including those that allow you to transfer company car across.

Trying to switch a spouses NCD due to death or ill health is much rarer and not catered for in the same way.

OK fair comment.

By the way, some of the providers offering to transfer NCD from a company car, only do it for one year, and then for the second year, you then only have one years NCD. Sneaky !

Not sure if they still do it but the Direct Line model used to be fairly complex as they gave you a pseudo NCD that had a slightly lower discount than regular. If you had a claim you'd lose all the NCD rather than the normal step down 2 years/ to 3 years if 5+ and it didnt increase until your real NCD exceeded the pseudo.  Same applied for company cars and motorbikes.

NCD is far from an industry standard thing... Car insurance is fairly routine around core activities but not around the edges. Move to Home or other classes and half the companies dont even recognise the concept. 

Katiehound

I wonder if it would be worth your while to contact Saga after all they only sell policies to over 50s. Just a thought.

Albermarle

Katiehound said:

I wonder if it would be worth your while to contact Saga after all they only sell policies to over 50s. Just a thought.

No harm in trying, but normally Saga are expensive.