Protected NCB

[Denis O]

I was just reading through a thread on someones latest renewal premium and I see that many of you protect your NCB. It raises the question why you do that. I haven't done it for years and probably save between £70 - £100 per year so why do people pay this money.

If you have an fault accident and make a claim you will still have whatever NCB you had prior to the accident. But the insurance company just load your premium to put you back in the position you would have been if you'd lost 2 years NCB.

We all do the Mearkat thing at renewal time and invariably find our existing insurer is not the cheapest. So we move to the new company but you can't take your protected NCB with you. I always find that a company that was cheap in 2012 will be much more in 2013 and end up moving.

So what is the advantage of protected NCB or is it just another way that insurance caompanies can extract money from our already flagging wallets and purses.

 

[Stuart Truman]

If you have an fault accident and make a claim you will still have whatever NCB you had prior to the accident. But the insurance company just load your premium to put you back in the position you would have been if you'd lost 2 years NCB.

Are you sure about that? I thought it worked like this:
Premium calculated on usual stuff (age, location, points etc)
NCB for however many years claim free applied
Gives you your net insurance premium.

So if you make a claim you lose your claim free status and your discount. Essentially NCB protection is insuring your discount.

 

[mr wilks]

Well put Stuart , CBA to explain but suffice to say with both myself & my wife having full NCD i don't relish the thought of it disappearing .
Also worth noting to protect used to be around £30/£40 extra but that seem's to have doubled in the last 4/5years ?

 

[bluestreak56]

According to Admiral:

If you make a claim:

It depends what the claim is for; payments for windscreen damage or emergency treatment fees don't affect your No Claims Bonus. If the accident was the other person's fault and we recover all the money from their insurers, your No Claims Bonus won't be affected.
Even if you do have to claim for an accident that was your fault, you could still keep some of your No Claims Bonus. If you make one claim during the period you're insured for, you'll lose two years No Claims Bonus. So if you'd five or more years No Claims Bonus, it would change to three years No Claims Bonus at renewal. You'd still get a discount off your premium, and it wouldn't take so long to build back up to that full No Claims Bonus.
If you make two claims during the period you're insured for, you'd lose four years No Claims Bonus, and if you made three or more claims during the period you're insured for, you'd lose all your No Claims Bonus.

NCB Protection:

Apart from driving safely, the other way to look after your No Claims Bonus is to pay an extra fee to guarantee or protect it. With a Guaranteed No Claims Bonus, making a claim won't reduce your No Claims Bonus (although you won't add any No Claims Bonus for that insurance period).
With a Protected No Claims Bonus, you can make two claims in a 3 year period before the bonus gets reduced (although you won't add any No Claims Bonus for that insurance period). The difference between the Guaranteed No Claims Bonus and Protected No Claims Bonus schemes is that with Protected, if you keep on making claims in consecutive insurance periods, you can lose the protection and ultimately, some of your No Claims Bonus too. You can read the details in our policy booklet.

On that basis I would only go for the protection if I'd already made 1 claim in the last 3 years myself.. or if have an extra 2 years NCB really reduced my policy by more than the saving vs protection.

My 4 years NCB are not protected.

 

[RichIbizaSport]

I think I've got 6 years NCB now, I stopped paying for protection last year.

As with the OP I realised they would bump up my premium if I had an accident regardless. The difference between 6 and 4 years NCD is pretty much nothing. So paying for protection is wasted money really.

Saying that though, I would probably buy the protection if I had <3 years NCD, as the discount is quite significant between 1-3.

 

[Shappers]

You don't lose all you Ncb after an accident which is your fault. Usually it's 2 years worth.

The biggest difference is number of claims on your policy, regardless of fault.

 

[KarlosG]

IME It makes very little difference when you offset the price of protecting your NCB, you still have to declare any accidents/claims (regardless of blame) which stacks against you and raises your premium for the following 5 years.
Having more NCB of course helps bring it down, but VS the cost of protecting it every year it's probably not worth it unless you are a regular claimant...
This of course all varies greatly from one insurer to the next so bit of a blanket statement anyway! lol

 

[Simon_P]

just another way that insurance caompanies can extract money from our already flagging wallets and purses.

100% correct. It's insurance for insurance. First question when calling another insurer for a quote is - have you had any claims? Answer yes and premium loaded even if you haven't lost your no claims you are a higher risk. A mate who underwrote car premiums always said its money for old rope for them, hence why they push it (just like pc world and their extended warranties) and advised not to pay for it.

 

[slick]

If you have protected No Claims your insurance will still get loaded due to a claim , and as has been pointed out previously the first thing you get asked if/when you move insureres is .. " any claims in the last ( insert years here) " so your no better off