Is it worth protecting ur NCB?

Shinds

Guys,

is it worth protecting ur No Claims Bonus?

As if you make a claim - Your premium is likely to go up the following year anyways..??

Thanks

vansboy

This is one of the few insurance 'add on' products, I'd feel are worthwhile.

A realtivly small premium, for considerable peace of mind.

BUY IT!!

VB

Mumstheword

YES YES YES

If you are given the opportunity, protect your bonus. (as long as it's a reasonable price)

I worked in motor insurance for years, and this is the one thing i still carry with me !

your premium could still go up if you are considered accident prone, but it would have gone up for that and for your loss of bonus without protection.

westernpromise

Isn't it just a ripoff though?

Some years ago, when I drove moderns, I was with the RAC and had to make a theft claim.

I had NCB protection so I figured there would be little impact from my £200 claim. Wrong! They loaded the premium to reflect that I was a "high risk" customer. I still had my 60% NCB, but the loading added £500 to the base premium.

So what was the result? I claimed £200 and they claimed it back at renewal.

scheming_gypsy

but your renewal was still 60% cheaper than if you had no NCD, and x cheaper than if it wasn't protected.

MarkyMarkD

I don't agree - I say NO NO NO!

NCB protection normally costs 15% of your premium, per annum.

If you claim it only costs you 20% of your NCB typically (from 60% to 40%).

So if you buy NCB protection you are paying 15% of your 40% premium (6% of the gross premium) to save an increase of 20% of the gross premium if you claim (in the first year) then 10% in the second year. So the total cost comparison is 6% of gross premium pa compared to 30% of gross premium if you have a claim incident.

So the breakeven is something like 5 years.

My wife and I haven't had a blameworthy accident between us in about 25 years' worth of insurance. We paid for NCB protection for ages until we twigged it was not worthwhile. Since then we've saved about a year's premium between us.

I also believe that insurers are far less likely to bother pursuing a third party for a claim if you don't care, because you are deluded by the protection into thinking it doesn't matter. But as stated above, your GROSS premium still goes up if you claim whether you are protected or not, so you end up bearing the consquences of their failure to chase the third party.

You might think protection is good value - but the insurers didn't start offering it for fun - they do it because it's money for old rope for them.

The_Bloodster

I would like to know the answer to this as well. To add something else to it though. I have heard somewhere that if you claim and have no NCB protection that they take two years off your discount.

I have 8 years discount and if I was to claim it would reduce this to 6. However whilst searching for quotes when asking how many NCD I have I say 8 but in many of the quotes the option was 1,2,3,4,5 or more. So if I could still tick the same box 5 or more in either case!!

MarkyMarkD

You almost always lose two years, but many companies don't give you any more after 5 anyway, and the reduction is from the last one they count, not your actual number.

So if you have 8, and the company gives 65% for 5 years, and have a claim, you will go down to 3 years which is probably 50%.

Effectively your years beyond 5 are a waste (with most companies).

With esure (who I'm with), you can bring 5 with you (as for most of the rest) which is worth 70%, and then at your next renewal you get credited with an extra 1% for every extra year's NCB up to 75% = 10 years. And because they have a 10 year scale, you only lose tiny amounts if you claim (for some reason, they knock you down 3 years once you're into their extended range, but only 2 years if you are in normal territory).

So to be clear - 10 years = 75%, claim and go down to 7 years = 72%. Claim again and go down to 4 years = 65%.

So, I can have 2 accidents and only lose 10% NCB to a not-very-bad 65%.

Do you see why I don't pay to protect it?

KTF

I have a car and motorcycle. The NCB on my bike policy is protected because if I make a claim on the car insurance (also protected) it will also count as a claim against the bike insurance - crazy as that is.

To me its def worth doing if you can affort to pay it.