Car Insurance - No Claims Discount being reduced?

Dustybee

I've just got my renewal quote from AA car insurance which is due beginning of April. An increase of 55% but not surprised reading recent increases in renewal prices.

My shock really is that they have reduced my no claims discount from 13 years (12 years were proved to them at the start of the policy last year) to 9 years on the renewal quote. Maybe this is their maximum, it doesn't say.

I have no had any incidents of any description and have had no reason to even contact them regarding the policy currently running. The NCD was also protected on the policy.

Can I insist they provide proof of 13 years no claims for me to obtain other quotes at this discount level? 

la531983

9 is the maximum that counts everywhere now iirc.

Dustybee

I've just done a "Compare the Market" Quote, one with 13 years no claims, one with 9 years no claims. No other changes.

On average the quotes are £25 less with the higher no claims bonus.

dunstonh

My shock really is that they have reduced my no claims discount from 13 years (12 years were proved to them at the start of the policy last year) to 9 years on the renewal quote. Maybe this is their maximum, it doesn't say.

Some providers only record up to 6. There is no universal standard.   And remember that a provider with a 13 year NCD could be more expensive after discount than one with a 6 year NCD.    It all depends on their scaling and gross premium.

Can I insist they provide proof of 13 years no claims for me to obtain other quotes at this discount level? 

No.  They probably have that level of detail anyway if you keep moving around.

It is for you to retain your NCD record.    Most will accept multiple documents showing the length of your NCD across multiple providers.    So, you would show your most recent NCD (9 years in this case) and then show earlier year's renewal documents that prove it goes long than that.

The great thing about electronic documentation is that you don't need to destroy old documentation.  So, its easy to do this.

DullGreyGuy

Dustybee said:

I've just got my renewal quote from AA car insurance which is due beginning of April. An increase of 55% but not surprised reading recent increases in renewal prices.

My shock really is that they have reduced my no claims discount from 13 years (12 years were proved to them at the start of the policy last year) to 9 years on the renewal quote. Maybe this is their maximum, it doesn't say.

I have no had any incidents of any description and have had no reason to even contact them regarding the policy currently running. The NCD was also protected on the policy.

Can I insist they provide proof of 13 years no claims for me to obtain other quotes at this discount level? 

In this day and age with the power of modern computers and how cheap storage is its kind of funny to still talk about it but back in the day when many insurance systems were first created there was a notable difference in storing a single digit number (0-9) than storing a two digit or unlimited digit number (0-999,999,999,999,999). As a consequence there are a large number of insurance systems that require NCD to be a value between 0-9. 

Historically this wasn't a problem, everyone gave their maximum NCD at 5 years so any number above this was vanity. When I cut my teeth in insurance we were a max 5 company however the DB could count up to 9. Telephone operators just pre-keyed in 5 because thats what over 95% of people have or above and made no difference if they typed 5-9. When the website launched we got more 9's in the db but didnt do anything. All our letters changed 5-9 to state "5 or more".

Someone then came up with the idea of doing a max 9 policy... was a bit of a con really as they still gave 70% discount but just took longer to get there compared to us. 

Pricing is a complex thing in insurance and the difference between two sets of quotes can be about things other than  what you think it is. I would be highly surprised if the whole market has moved to a larger number than 9 for the statement to be driven by NCD to see an AVERAGE decrease of £25.

The minority of outliers that do things different to the market know that they are and so have processes to deal with it. Our letters would never say anything more than "5 or more" but when some started offering lower NCD for 6 or 7 years etc then they'd accept the prior NCD showing 5 and our more recent notices saying 5+ and therefore deduce from the dates that its actually 7. 

Dustybee

Thanks for the replies.

I did some searching in the AA documentation online and found that they DO actually supply a NCB letter which you can ask for:

 It's a good idea to get your NCB letter when your policy ends, and shop around to get the most out of your discount.

Mine is on it's way to me with the agreed 13 years stated.