Cut Your Car Insurance In 4 Steps Discussion Area

Keanu

Hello all,

been reading up on the site as my car insurance due up shortly. Followed all the guidelines to get price down but curious about 'Protected No Claims Discount' issue.

Read from one money saver that once you have more than 5 years NCD isn't worth protecting as no other company would honour it (if you were to claim) so you are stuck with original company.

Bottom line, question is, is this advice true? Is it not worth paying the extra to protect this NCD? If you don't crash then the 'protected' premium didn't need to be paid and if you do crash then you are stuck with the original company as no other one will honour it?

Any advice welcome.

Chers

lisyloo

If you don't crash then the 'protected' premium didn't need to be paid and if you do crash then you are stuck with the original company as no other one will honour it?

This is all tru, but it still could be worthwhile if you do crash.
You don't have a free choice as you rightly say, but it could still save you hundred of ££s on your premium.

I pay it but I am not short of cash so don't have to worry too much about the cost.

Whether it's worth it FOR YOU is not something anyone else can answer.

But you are correct to identify the limitations which are not obvious at first glance.

Keanu

Seems a case of 'the insurance companies have us by the short & curlies, as usual!!'

Don't suppose we have any inside info on how the insurance companies treat this? i.e. they say the NCD will be protected but the fact you have claimed must be declared, and 'this may effect the premium' - to me this reads that your NCD is not being protected (fully protected at least)?

lisyloo

the fact you have claimed must be declared, and 'this may effect the premium'

You are correct again that you are not fully protected.

I am not too sure on this but I think it might depend on how it is settled.
Someone on here had an experience where their claim was not settled by the 3rd party i.e. uninsured driver and the insurance company wanted to put up the premium.

I am not sure on the rules though.

You are right that this is less beneficial that it first appears.

I would certainly not loose too much sleep over it if you are struggling to afford it.

nrobinson

I know the cost can be a big determinand in choosing insurance provider, but I have found that service can also be of great value.

Does anyone have feelings about the service they recieve from their insurers I can offer two pearls:

Bell Direct - I have found them to be okay and a claim I had to put through where someone else hit me was dealt with quickly and effectively without cost to me, however recently they were very unhelpful when I was looking to work out the cost of making a claim or not and so they will now be loosing my business

Similarly I would not use any company that used Van Ameyde and Wallis as intermediaries as I had a long running battle with them to even respond to my letters - took them 3 months to respond to a simple communication!!

I think we should form a top 10 and worst 10 of insurance providers based on service, then you can make your choice on money and ease of business.

Cheers,

Nik.

magic

do insurers take into account you being a named driver on someone elses insurance? i am looking to buy my first car and have been (and am still) a named driver on my brothers car. can i use this for the no claims bonus info or does NCB only apply to the policy holder, ie my brother?

nrobinson

In my experience strictly NO...

You can transfer NCB no older than 12 months to a new policy,
But history as a named driver,
or on a company car policy idoes not count.

HOWEVER
I know some insurers will offer some deal due to past history of no claims - maybe 20-30%
Try more than one insurer and try to play them off one against another!

Loss of NCB history - Yet another penalty for those taking Company car options.

ScouseShannon

I renewed my insurance before seeing this site but cut my renewal Tesco quote of £1600 to £800 full comp and breakdown with Elephant online after a full day of phoning all the top companies. This with 3 points and a writeoff so no NCD. Car Lexus IS200

Edinburghlass_2

As my car insurance is due in two weeks I read Martin's article and put my details through confused.com. The cheapest to come up was Kwik-Fit at £155 compared to my renewal price of £164 from Esure.

As they don't cover Direct Line, Esure and Tesco I put the details through Direct Line and Tesco and for a similar spec Direct Line came up as £10 cheaper but managed to get it down to £127 by removing the courtesy car and legal protection but keeping the NC protection. This also included 10% as a home insurance customer and 10% off for applying online. I was pretty pleased with that but fortunately didn't sign immediately.

This morning Kwik-Fit phoned me regarding the quote they had given me through confused.com and asked me what I thought about the quote and had I decided to go with it. I told him I had a better quote from Direct Line and he asked what it was and so he number crunched for a bit and has come up with a quote for £132 which includes the courtesy car, hire car if required, 10% card off Kwik-Fit and a free winter check. Plus he phoned me so that saved a phone call. As he caught me unexpectedly I have asked him to call back tomorrow morning but I think I will go with Kwik-Fit now. I think he said the insurance would be through Royal, Sun Alliance.

I couldn't actually get the other search site to record my details so gave up with that and my only gripe with confused.com was it wouldn't let me put in just a part-time job and ended up me showing that I had a full and part-time job and wouldn't allow me to change the initial details. Two insurance companies wouldn't quote due to my multiple jobs!

As I was reading this board while applying I decided not to go with the legal protection so thanks to the posters who talked about this.

Thanks too due to Martin for the articles and I have to say thanks for the new look forum with the main board articles to the side and top making them easy to find and click on.

£30 saving, not big in comparison to some but a big saving on my £164 renewal quote!

nrobinson

I notice that this month another consumer group (Which) have published a report on car insurance companies and measuring their customer care and cost!!

I think there always needs to be a balance between cost and level of service.

Cheers,
Nik.