Options for car ins cost reduction when out of the country

HannahSolo

My teen has a pay monthly telemetric (black box) named driver policy on my car through Marmalade since April 24.  It allows her to build up her own NCD and use my car for >50% of the trips. She goes travelling Jan-May 25 so asked about freezing the policy and they said no option- cancel and lose getting her first years no claims OR pay Jan to April (£600+). 

This is on top of us having to scrap her first car (and its black box policy which she had from Jan to April) as it had heaps of mechanical issues and was beyond economic repair. So by Jan she will have been driving well, with a record of this from the black box and without any claims and have no proof of NC from either insurance company despite this being reality. Any ideas to help (a) reduce or eliminate 4 months of insurance cost when she wont be in the country and (b) help plug the data gap on driving experience and rating ? So her June onwards insurance isnt at the current £2700 level ? 

TheSpectator

You need to work out if the 1 years NCD will make a sufficient reduction compared to continuing the insurance.

There is no other solution that I can think off. You can't mix and match periods of no claims. You either have a full year on a particular policy or not.

DullGreyGuy

Had you replaced her car then you could have transferred the original policy to the new car and she'd be getting her 1 years NCD in Jan. 

Outside that you've gotten your two options, cancel the top up policy to save money and have 0 NCD when they're back in the country or pay the minimum premium for having the car insured but not used and then in April she'll have her 1 year NCD. 

The passage of time both in terms of her age and how long she has held a full licence will mean her insurance goes down next year -v- today with or without NCD, just it will go down further with it.

HannahSolo

thanks for taking the time to respond. Would have loved to have been able to replace the first car, affordability is the issue when had paid the value of the car in repairs over a 3 month period only for it to then have further issues we could not fund and were advised not economical to fix. Affordability being the key - was hoping for some other methods being possible via insurance company such as reduce to third party, switch to pay per mile, as viable ways to not cancel but reduce cost. Nada 

400ixl

One years NCD is typically something around a 17% discount. Which is £459 on a £2700 base policy. So less than she will save by paying the £600 to get the NCD.

3rd party is often more expensive than comprehensive, pay per mile policies are very specific and only certain companies do them. It is not usually possible to make changes between different types of cover.

Typically you are restricted to to change of mileage, address, drivers etc.

Looks like cancelling is the most cost effective. 

DullGreyGuy

400ixl said:

One years NCD is typically something around a 17% discount. Which is £459 on a £2700 base policy. So less than she will save by paying the £600 to get the NCD.

In traditional progressions 1 years NCD was worth 30% and some insurers still publish their NCD scales in policy books. 

Many have gone away from the traditional scale though, you can see Admiral on https://www.admiral.com/pncb shows 1) a very different scale to the original and 2) importantly states its the average discount which clearly implies not everyone gets the same discount. 

The old scale used to give a maximum of 65 or 70% discount but it all gets a bit silly when you remember that the vast majority of people have maximum NCD... starts feeling like a furniture shop with their 364 days a year sale. 

Many insurers dont publish what their scale is, most the floor (minimum premium they will sell for) applies after the application of NCD so if they dont want to sell a policy under £250 and your quote before NCD is £252 then 1 year or 50 years the NCD will give a £2 discount. 

Some insurers have really cut back the NCD heavily. Admiral above only goes to 27% on average now, another household name a few years ago said theirs was to 18% on average.