Advice on switching NCB to second car

*srjp*

I currently have two cars through a broker, insured with different companies.

Car 1 has 1 year NCB already and almost a second year clocked up.

Car 2 has no NCB and is only a few months into its first.

(I don't crash a lot by the way, just never had my own policies before!)

I'm looking to sell Car 1 so my question is, can I simply transfer the NCB from Car 1 to Car 2?

Is it also worth waiting a further two months to sell it so that I can claim two years NCB on it and transfer that? Car 2 will only have accumulated half a year of NCB by that time so it seems more worthwhile.

In the latter case I might consider selling it immediately but not tell the insurer I have done so until renewal - is this dodgy? As I see it I'd have paid for a service and just not be using. If I told them I'd sold it and sought a refund, by the time they have deducted their administration fee I wouldn't get any rebate from the unused period anyway!


Thanks

Oscar_The_Grouch

Hi there,

One of the basic principals of insurance is "Insurable Interest". This means that you must own the item you are insuring (your car), or have a financial burden placed on you by it (a rented TV).

When insuring a life, you only have to show insurable interest at the start of the policy. This means that if you have a joint mortgage with your wife and take out insurance on her life, this is quite legal. If you were to divorce and keep the policy going, you could benefit from the money when she gets accidentally run over by a bus (I'm assuming you are a bloke on the sexist assumption that only blokes would want to own more than 1 car, so sorry if I am wrong).

When it comes to insuring property (cars), you have to be able to show that you have insurable interest throughout the life of the policy (usually 12 months). This means that if you sell your car you either have to cancel the policy or buy another car to insure. If you carry the policy on, you are technically telling your insurers a lie (suggesting to them that you still own the car) and (if they were feeling particularly nasty) they could decide that you are attempting to defraud them - not something you want to happen.

have you considered:

1. Sell the car.
2. Transfer car 2 on to policy 1.
3. Cancel the policy that was covering car 2.

This would seem to do the trick. Either that, or keep both cars and ask your broker to look for a policy that will give you a 2nd car discount.

*srjp*

Hi, thanks for your reply. Yes I'm a bloke, but was more a case of needing to buy the second vehicle urgently before I could sell the first rather than a petrol-head thing of collecting cars!

I did looked into transfering Car 2 to the policy of Car 1 but they seem to have got me with specialist companies (Car 1 is fast, Car 2 is an import) so to do a transfer was £££ more than to take out a new policy, hence different companies for each car.

I appreciate the information regarding the insurance of something I don't own, I guessed they might have a problem with it but didn't know why. Seems it may be worth hanging on to the car a month or so longer in order to get the full two year NCB. It's taxed and MOT'd anyway.

Do you foresee any problem transferring the NCB from 1 to 2 once I've sold it? I'd hate to 'lose' it even if it doesn't mean an immediate reduction this year. I've tried googling for examples of people doing this but there are plenty of queries and not many answers! Obviously it's not something I want to chat to the broker about just yet...