The Lemon Fool

I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

It does ring a bit of a bell, but I have only ever owned one car at a time, so I don't have personal experience.

I do know that with motorcycles you can get multi-bike polices, and certainly on those additional bikes aren't charged as if they were a whole new policy. Of course you can only have one person insured on such a policy. Does such a thing exist for cars?

redsturgeon wrote:I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

As far as I can see, if you have different principal drivers for each car, each driver has their own NCD. If one driver has two cars, the NCD applies to him, not the cars.

TJH

Yes - should be common knowledge to anyone who has ever bought a second car or motorbike in hte last 3 decades, although what used to happen with bikes was multibike policies were common, less so with cars. Also a real PITA if the one you are selling overlaps slightly with the new one.

However multicar is now common - last time we bought extra cars we were with admiral so added one to an existing policy but somehow it ran for 12 months so there were different end dates. An anomoly of this was that come renewal time we got separate NCD for both cars and were able to split the policies.

As far as I can see, if you have different principal drivers for each car, each driver has their own NCD. If one driver has two cars, the NCD applies to him, not the cars

No - if you have 2 cars on 2 separate policies they can have differing numbers of years of NCD. Until you claim on one of course, when they shaft you on all of them.

Paul

redsturgeon wrote:I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

Don't know about common, but am aware yes. We've spent times in the last 20 yrs with a 3rd car in the house, and 2 sets of 15yrs+ NCB, you may want to do some juggling.

It was easy at one point when I had them all on Admiral multicar - very flexible/helpful. But then they ruined it one year with one of their silly renewal jumps.

In 50s with 2 sets of 20+yrs, getting a quote for a [not exotic] car without NCB seems reasonable anyway - with all the other criteria, I'm unsure the NCB makes a massive difference with some providers.

Worth considering swapping the main insured driver every couple of years if you go down to one car to maintain the NCB

redsturgeon wrote:I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

Errr wrong
I have two cars insured though the same company on two different polices which renew at different times during the year and they each have different number of years no claims bonus attached to each policy. If you think this is because the company has not linked the polices this is not the case as I'm receiving a discount on the second later started policy though having two policies with the company.

If you have a multi-car policy which covers both/all your cars on a single policy then it may well be different.

U962 wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

Errr wrong
I have two cars insured though the same company on two different polices which renew at different times during the year and they each have different number of years no claims bonus attached to each policy. If you think this is because the company has not linked the polices this is not the case as I'm receiving a discount on the second later started policy though having two policies with the company.

If you have a multi-car policy which covers both/all your cars on a single policy then it may well be different.

I think we are not disagreeing here. Maybe my post was not totally clear.

Example You have earned 5 years NCB on a single car. You can transfer that to a new car. You then buy another car and now have two cars. You cannot use your 5 years NCB on the second car as well as keeping it on the first car. You can however start to build NCB with the second car so after one year you can claim 5 years with one car and 1 year NCB on the second.

U962 wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

Errr wrong
I have two cars insured though the same company on two different polices which renew at different times during the year and they each have different number of years no claims bonus attached to each policy. If you think this is because the company has not linked the polices this is not the case as I'm receiving a discount on the second later started policy though having two policies with the company

What John has said is not wrong, perhaps not quite phrased correctly. The situation is that you can't use the existing NCD on a seoarate policy with a different company.

You may have policies with different start/end dates, although it also appears your NCD was not fully applied to vehicle 2 as they would have the same number of years NCD (obviously the first policy to renew can have 1 more year than the second) but yours sounds like a multicar policy.

SOME companies will credit you with NCD based on your current policy if you insure a second vehicle with them. They used to add vehicle 2 to the V1 policy for the remainder of the term (motorcycle insurers still do this), but Admiral will create a 'multi-car' policy with different start and end dates for different vehicles and apply full NCD to both vehicles, but they are linked policies..

The anomoly with this approach is that come renewal time their system sends separate reminders which show the same NCD, allowing you to switch companies for one vehicle effectively duplicating the NCD accrued on the pther policy.

However, if you go to a different insurance company and say "I've 20 years NCD on my current car, can I get a discount on my Avensis" they'll generally refuse to allow you to use the NCD. There are 'offers', they CAN give you a couple of years of 'introductory discount' if you've been a company car driver or a named driver on your wife's policy, but the system at the companies I tried wouldn't/couldn't give me any credit for accrued NCD on my current own car (no, neither of us could work that one out).

Paul

It all seems a little Kafkaesque, surely the point of interest is the driver's history of claims rather than the car's history.

If a company is giving me the benefit of 10 years claim free motoring, it is me as the driver who has earned that not the cars I have driven. Why do I then become treated as a new driver with no NCB if I happen to want to buy and run an extra car?

redsturgeon wrote:It all seems a little Kafkaesque, surely the point of interest is the driver's history of claims rather than the car's history.

If a company is giving me the benefit of 10 years claim free motoring, it is me as the driver who has earned that not the cars I have driven. Why do I then become treated as a new driver with no NCB if I happen to want to buy and run an extra car?

Is it not a bit of both driver and car history? After all, if (one of) your cars is stolen, that affects the NCB on that car. And (I presume) not on the second policy?

redsturgeon wrote:I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

Ive kn own that for a very long time.

whether I am typical is another thing!

Yes I did know, and yes it just confirms to me what a bunch of sharks insurance people are. To me, the bulk of the risk resides with the driver so the NCB resides with them also.

Oggy wrote:Yes I did know, and yes it just confirms to me what a bunch of sharks insurance people are. To me, the bulk of the risk resides with the driver so the NCB resides with them also.

So if I crash my MacLaren, I can use the benefit of the NCB from my Morris Minor?

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

Oggy wrote:Yes I did know, and yes it just confirms to me what a bunch of sharks insurance people are. To me, the bulk of the risk resides with the driver so the NCB resides with them also.

So if I crash my MacLaren, I can use the benefit of the NCB from my Morris Minor?

BJ

Well yes, as long as you owned the Morris Minor first, then sold it and replaced it with the MacLaren.

redsturgeon wrote:I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

I only found this out about two years ago when we had to put our two cars into separate names because of it. I wonder if it's a new invention? - or maybe we've never had cause to come across it.

redsturgeon wrote:

U962 wrote:
Errr wrong
I have two cars insured though the same company on two different polices which renew at different times during the year and they each have different number of years no claims bonus attached to each policy. If you think this is because the company has not linked the polices this is not the case as I'm receiving a discount on the second later started policy though having two policies with the company.

If you have a multi-car policy which covers both/all your cars on a single policy then it may well be different.

I think we are not disagreeing here. Maybe my post was not totally clear.

Example You have earned 5 years NCB on a single car. You can transfer that to a new car. You then buy another car and now have two cars. You cannot use your 5 years NCB on the second car as well as keeping it on the first car. You can however start to build NCB with the second car so after one year you can claim 5 years with one car and 1 year NCB on the second.

But as others have pointed out, this seems strange because it's the driver which is the risk, not the car, and the driver which earns the NCD so that NCD should "travel" with the driver. Admittedly, different cars have different risks, but this is accounted for by the insurance group they are in.

Arb.

Arborbridge wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:I just found out something regarding car insurance NCB that I have never come across in all my years of insuring cars. It seems that you can only use your NCB on one car at a time. So if your have say 10 years of NCB but have two cars that you wish to insure then you have to choose which car to claim your NCB with.

Is this common knowledge?

I only found this out about two years ago when we had to put our two cars into separate names because of it. I wonder if it's a new invention? - or maybe we've never had cause to come across it.

I had not thought about it historically either. Although my wife and I have always had 2 cars in 2 separate names and 2 separate insurance policies. So that if one of us got dinged with higher rates because of an accident or traffic offence, the other would not suffer.

Lootman wrote:I had not thought about it historically either. Although my wife and I have always had 2 cars in 2 separate names and 2 separate insurance policies. So that if one of us got dinged with higher rates because of an accident or traffic offence, the other would not suffer.

That'll work just as long as neither of you is a named driver on the other's policy. As I found out about ten years ago, when my wife was peripherally involved in a multi-shunt caused entirely by an L-driver about five cars away from her.

My wife and her car were undamaged, and so were the cars immediately around her. Nobody for a single moment suggested that she was responsible for anything, and she didn't receive any communications at all about the matter. Ever!

But, about three months later, my car's insurer wrote me a furious letter, accusing me of concealing the fact that she had been involved in an accident in her own car. And cancelling MY NCB until such time as "her" accident claim had been resolved. (Sure enough, it was in the hands of somebody's battling solicitors......)

Believe it, word gets around pretty fast on the insurance claims database. And my own insurer had figured that this fault-free driver (my wife) was also a named driver on my own car's policy - and that that fact alone was sufficient reason to accuse me of concealing her "involvement in an accident claim". I can tell you, I drove pretty carefully for the next nine months, which was how long it took for the shambles to be resolved.

[Edit]: Meanwhile, my wife never received any warnings about any danger to her NCB. Or any formal notification that the case had been resolved. Or anything at all, in fact.I nstead, I had become the punchbag.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

Lootman wrote:I had not thought about it historically either. Although my wife and I have always had 2 cars in 2 separate names and 2 separate insurance policies. So that if one of us got dinged with higher rates because of an accident or traffic offence, the other would not suffer.

That'll work just as long as neither of you is a named driver on the other's policy. As I found out about ten years ago, when my wife was peripherally involved in a multi-shunt caused entirely by an L-driver about five cars away from her.

My wife and her car were undamaged, and so were the cars immediately around her. Nobody for a single moment suggested that she was responsible for anything, and she didn't receive any communications at all about the matter. Ever!

But, about three months later, my car's insurer wrote me a furious letter, accusing me of concealing the fact that she had been involved in an accident in her own car. And cancelling MY NCB until such time as "her" accident claim had been resolved. (Sure enough, it was in the hands of somebody's battling solicitors......)

Believe it, word gets around pretty fast on the insurance claims database. And my own insurer had figured that this fault-free driver (my wife) was also a named driver on my own car's policy - and that that fact alone was sufficient reason to accuse me of concealing her "involvement in an accident claim". I can tell you, I drove pretty carefully for the next nine months, which was how long it took for the shambles to be resolved.

[Edit]: Meanwhile, my wife never received any warnings about any danger to her NCB. Or any formal notification that the case had been resolved. Or anything at all, in fact. Instead, I had become the punchbag.

BJ

You are correct: I am not named on my wife's policy and she is not named on mine. So when I got a traffic ticket about 4 years ago (just my second in 50 years) her insurance was not affected even though I was driving her car at the time. And since I only have third party cover on a cheap car, mine wasn't affected either as it happened.

As for accidents, your story is instructive. My wife has never had an accident, other than being rear-ended about a dozen years ago. She reported that and was held 0% to blame, so no premium penalty.

And the only accident I had, other than parking bumps and scratches that I would not bother reporting, was a head on accident in 1988. Nobody was injured but my car was written off. 50-50 blame. The other driver had minimal damage and said she did not want to take any action. And since it was a cheap car I didn't bother with a claim either, and never reported the accident. No police involved but the AA towed me afterwards and I did worry that the AA reports towing accident-damaged vehicles. But evidently they do not. Or at least did not back then.

I have had a full NCD for over 40 years. My wife has for over 30 years.