Car Insurer Not Recognising My NCD After 2 years This is criminal.

midimanuser

Aretnap said:

midimanuser said:

Aretnap said:

midimanuser said:

The max discount they give is 24%. So in theory all of these insurance companies have been erroding my NCDs for years and they practically amount to nothing. 

A meager £300 off for 9 years NCD. That's about £33 for every year of NCD they take into effect as they disregard anything above that.

This is a Good Thing.

Obviously there's a maximum number of years insurers will take into account at all. They don't care whether your 17 year old self had an accident 20 years ago or not - why would they? I'm a very different person to my 17 year old self and I'm sure that you are too.

Plus if insurers did give you credit for decades and decades of "hard graft and safe driving" (most of us just call it "owning a car"), the flip side would be that if you'd had an accident on the way to an Oasis gig, you'd still have to declare it, and pay extra as a result, a couple of decades later. Plenty of people would see that as an outrage as well.

In any event as had already been mentioned, the notion that NCB represents a "discount" in any meaningful sense of the word has always been a fiction. The large majority of people have full NCB, so what you get with full NCB is really the standard price. By "eroding your NCDs to practically nothing" all they're actually doing is penalising people less heavily for having had accidents, or for having little driving history. Or indeed for having not insured a car of their own for the last couple of years.

I'm not really sure what you're angry about now -the fact that the thing they've so wantonly and unfairly taken away turned out not to have been worth all that much after all? Or just the fact that you're not being penalised enough for not having and various NCB?

midimanuser said:

So now I have two options. 
1. Pay the extra £300 and lose my 16yrs NCB. 
2. Purchase a bargain car and insure it for as little as possible with someone that gives 3 years grace. 

Going to the expense of buying and insuring another car just to save (less than) £300 on next year's insurance bill seems a little drastic, but if preserving your NCD is really a hill that you want to die on then go right ahead.

Or you mention sharing a car - if that means sharing with your spouse or partner you could always insure your partner's car with someone who will recognise for up to 3 years. Then your NCB will be available to use on your own car again in a year's time. Alternating the policyholder every year is the standard way to keep two NCBs going when you're temporarily a one car family. 

Or you could always just shrug and get on with life.

You say all it might save me is £300. 
But it it will cost me £300 the next so on without it. 
Say £1500 in 5 years. 

It certainly won't cost you £300 every year going forward, because you'll be building it up again, and as you can see from the table I posted above the bulk of the discount comes in the first couple of years or so anyway.

So you'll have maybe a 20% discount with 1 year's NCD - which means only a £100 extra cost next year. Then maybe £50 the year after. In 5 years time the difference between 5 years and twenty-something years NCD will likely be a rounding error on your premium. 

midimanuser said:

The cars insurance that I am sharing doesn't run out until next March. So I can't put myself as a main driver on that with anyone else and my 3 years would have run out by then. 

If you're really desperate you could always look into cancelling the current policy on the car that you've been sharing and insuring it yourself from now. There'll be a cancellation fee to pay - but balance that against the savings from preserving your NCD. 

It's who the policyholder is who matters from an NCD perspective by the way - the main driver and the policyholder are not necessarily the same person.

Hi yes, 
This is a total mind field and I kind of feel that my insurers feel for me as the manager has tried to offer me some assistance even if it means them losing me as they must know that the underwriters rules are not fair. 
Look at the measures that were put in place to help renters during Covid to prevent them from falling into difficulties

Why should others and myself been expected to tax and insure vehicles when we were forced to work at home, and then only allowed back to work once it was deemed safe. 

I have never had a lapse in insurance but this was extenuating circumstances. 
And I have been driving, and insured most of the time where possible during those 2.4 years. 
Gaining 2 years NCD on a van too. 

I can pay the extra £300 and be done with it but it means that I lose my 16yrs NCD and end up giving over the odds to someone that really doesn't deserve my money for what has been nothing in return in 30 years of driving. 

DullGreyGuy

tifo said:

Aretnap said:

If Aviva's numbers are at all typical then far from having to spend eighteen years and thousands of pounds just to get back to where he was, the OP may well find that next year he is already most of the way back to where he was, and that the difference between one year and 18 years NCD is pretty small. Meanwhile he's saved himself the costs of running, maintaining, taxing and insuring a car entirely for the last two and a half years, so overall I'd say he's still well ahead as a result.

I remember the days when 9 years NCD was marketed as "up to 75% discount". Not these days.

Well, that was the other silliness of it... one of our competitors made a big thing about recognising up to 9 years NCD and at that level they gave a 70% discount but we maxed out at 5 years but gave a 75% for that. 

Many are still giving 60-75% discounts for max NCD but the insurance is priced for the discount and so they aren't cheaper than those only offering a 30% Max NCD, the difference comes to the low NCD holders who are more expensive with these providers instead. 

WellKnownSid

midimanuser said:

Why should others and myself been expected to tax and insure vehicles when we were forced to work at home, and then only allowed back to work once it was deemed safe. 

Nobody actually forced you to do anything.  If you wanted to go back to the office sooner, you could have changed jobs - I went the other way - our company was forcing everyone back to work in an 'Elon Musk' kind of memo, so I changed to a company that's permanent WFH.  Life is a set of choices, we are all responsible for our decisions - otherwise that would make us irresponsible.

But as I say, you've probably saved yourself £15,000 and it might cost you £1,000 over the next five years to put it right.  Look on the bright side!

sheramber

If you if you were forced to work from home we’re you not paid?

Barkin

Mr.Generous said:

Out of interest what car costs £1300 to insure? My car is group 29 and costs about £250 on a multi car with wife's car for just over £400)

It's car insurance - there's no logic to it. 
My car's group 36 or so, and last renewal a couple of weeks ago was the first time it's cost me over 200 quid. 

Highbury59

I had this problem today when trying to take out a policy just under 2 years after leaving Admiral  following being a named driver on my wife's policy for the past 2 years (as my own car had been sold).  The new insurer Aviva wouldn't accept a proof of No Claims Discount even though there was still time left between the two years.  I had no choice other than to cancel the new policy and return to Admiral and pay over double the amount of the Aviva quote to save my 12 years NCB.  What a mess when insurers ike Aviva (in my personal experience) don't follow even the standard 2 years gap.  All the overseas lady agent would say was "its because theres a gap in your insurance "  She just wouldn't accept anything that I said.  You really have to keep yourself totally aware of everything these days as insurers change their policies and the first you know about it is when you make changes and they become awkward with you.  Admiral have been great....except for charging me so much more......

MyRealNameToo

Highbury59 said:

I had this problem today when trying to take out a policy just under 2 years after leaving Admiral  following being a named driver on my wife's policy for the past 2 years (as my own car had been sold).  The new insurer Aviva wouldn't accept a proof of No Claims Discount even though there was still time left between the two years.  I had no choice other than to cancel the new policy and return to Admiral and pay over double the amount of the Aviva quote to save my 12 years NCB.  What a mess when insurers ike Aviva (in my personal experience) don't follow even the standard 2 years gap.  All the overseas lady agent would say was "it's because theres a gap in your insurance "  She just wouldn't accept anything that I said.  You really have to keep yourself totally aware of everything these days as insurers change their policies and the first you know about it is when you make changes and they become awkward with you.  Admiral have been great....except for charging me so much more......

If you stop and think about it, their position makes total sense... how would they know if you didnt have a major claim last year which is why you are trying to reuse your previous renewal notice showing when you still had 12 years rather than this years renewal which shows you only have 3 years because of the impact of the claim?

The whole NCD thing doesnt make any sense if you stop and think about it, even more so if you also consider NCD Protection. 

The old Home insurance approach used to be much better, in my mind, with their two questions:
1) How many claims have you had in the last X years
2) How many years have you continuously held Home insurance

NCD is a marketing tool and the discount its worth is tiny these days with most insurers; long gone are the days of it being an 80% discount that the vast majority of customers get. 

sheramber

An insurance company is free to make its own times.
 Some accept  up to  two years, some accept up to three years. 

iainscomputer

midimanuser said:

Hi, 
I have over 25 years driving experience and 18 years NCD. 

I have never made a claim  in 25 years or lapsed in my insurance until this thing called Covid and lockdown came along. 

During that time my company sent me home and they have only just recently allowed us back to the workplace. Because I had to sell my car because I was losing money on and there was no point on me taxing and insuring something just to sit on the drive. 

This meant that when I went to get a new car I had not been insured on my own car for 2.5 years. 

My new insurer has just written to me thanking me for sending in my 18years proof of NCD but have said that they can't accept it as there rules state that I must have been on my own policy for no less than 2 years. 

This means that I have lost my 18yrs of NCD and I will have to start again. 
Now they also want an extra £300 on top of the £1300 that I am already paying! to keep it going!!

I am fuming because during that time I have been insured on a Van and a brand new Mercedes that I was sharing to keep our costs down until my work situation resolved. I even gained 2 years NCD on the VAN.  

These insurers need to be taken in by the Government and dealt with because they are getting away with murder in times that have been difficult for us all. 

I am thinking about writing to the Insurance bodies or someone like that.  

 

Hi, the whole No claims thing can be a bit of a scam, my wife got given 8 years NCD when we bought our 2nd car just from being a named driver on my policy for 2 years, I also bought a 2nd hand BMW in May 2025, I transferred my insurance to this car with all my NCD, but I still needed to insure the old car, so I could take it for an MOT & park it on the road.
i insured that car for 1 year Fully Comp for £192! Because it was so cheap, we have kept it as a spare car, if it was more valuable we would have sold it, but it’s worth under £1k.

iainscomputer

When you were working from home & you disposed of your car to save money, do you not use the car for anything else? We have 3 cars & 1 motorbike & I go to work on a bicycle!
I know the importance of keeping my NCD & wouldn’t be selling my car, but I’m not paying £1300 for insurance!