What is the point in NCB?

[Gilbretto]

Given the biggest cost to insurance companies besides their liabilities will be there workforce do you honestly believe civil servants would be able to do the same amount of work in the same time for less money?

Haha, good point.

semi-nationalisation it is and bring back the unions!!

 

[Sonea Fifer]

Protected no claims is pretty much an insurance gimmick IMO.

Quoted for the sad truth it is.

Three years ago my car was vandalised outside my house in the middle of the night. They'd tried to open the door with a screwdriver, destroyed the lock and scratched the hell out of the paintwork on two doors before (i assume) they were disturbed and left without gaining entry to the car.

At that time I had just over 9 years worth of NCB, naturally I also paid to protect this. I claimed on the insurance in order to fix the car, thats what insurance is for - right?

Then I'm told this will affect my NCB - so, my car is vandalised and damaged through no fault of my own, when i do make a claim i get screwed over - is it any wonder there's so many uninsured drivers out there when each insurance company is screwing everyone thats trying to stay legal !

 

[stoofa]

Vandalism has always been classed as a different kind of claim.
It's changing - as you'll have seen from the big advertising campaign from Direct Line and a few other company's are also following suit.

Protected no claims is interesting.
I have 16 years NCB although I have had one "at fault" accident about 6 years ago.
Right now I'm on "Guaranteed NCB" which basically means that in theory I can have as many accidents as I like during the insurance period and still emerge with my NCB intact.

However the fact I have 16 years NCB proves to the insurance company that I am a good driver and unlikely to have an accident.
So they are allowing me to protect those 16 years in case I really do have a "totally out of character" accident.

 

[jumpy]

I've had 2 claims on my insurance in 15 years of driving - neither of which was my fault. Each time it has been a struggle to get the insurance to cough up. They have conveniently written off my motor as 'uneconomical to repair', and given me the lowest possible value for the vehicle.
The second time this happened, they wrote the car off and took possession of it even though I told the assessor that I would be the judge of keeping the car or not, not him; I only wanted his opinion on the damage as I could have repaired it myself. I never had a chance to remove the tax disk and get it refunded after that. Plus about 6 months later I got a nice letter and a fine from the dvla because my 'scrapped vehicle' was parked on a public road in sevenoaks - miles away from where the storage warehouse was supposed to be - without valid road tax. I was absolutely livid with anger when I discovered this.
And each time they've tried to goose me with a premium hike or some other ridiculous hidden fee/charge, despite having paid for ncb protection.
I've paid many times more than the 'current market value' (that's such a great insurance term... makes my heart sink every time I hear it because you know you're about to get stiffed, again) of all the cars I've owned put together, for car insurance over the years, so someone is doing quite well out of me...

Simply put, motor insurance is legally endorsed theft.

 

[thepharcyde]

Touch wood never been in a accident that was my fault. Just got a renewal quote on a focus with current insurer DL. They wanted more than last year. I called up and asked if they would match halifax as ive been with DL 7 years with 8 years NCB. They would not so adio. Seems farcicle

 

[thepharcyde]

Vandalism has always been classed as a different kind of claim.
It's changing - as you'll have seen from the big advertising campaign from Direct Line and a few other company's are also following suit.

Protected no claims is interesting.
I have 16 years NCB although I have had one "at fault" accident about 6 years ago.
Right now I'm on "Guaranteed NCB" which basically means that in theory I can have as many accidents as I like during the insurance period and still emerge with my NCB intact.

However the fact I have 16 years NCB proves to the insurance company that I am a good driver and unlikely to have an accident.
So they are allowing me to protect those 16 years in case I really do have a "totally out of character" accident.

Problem with vandalisim cover is you still pay excess so that scratch that will cost £200 to fix is pointless with a 400 excess!!!!

 

[Dogbreath]

Right now I'm on "Guaranteed NCB" which basically means that in theory I can have as many accidents as I like during the insurance period and still emerge with my NCB intact.

However, this doesn't prevent them loading your policy, and if you move to another insurer you still have to declare any claims you have made within the last n years (usualy 5 IRC), so whilst it might protect your No Claims, it doesn't protect your premium.

I've had 2 claims on my insurance in 15 years of driving - neither of which was my fault. Each time it has been a struggle to get the insurance to cough up. They have conveniently written off my motor as 'uneconomical to repair', and given me the lowest possible value for the vehicle.
The second time this happened, they wrote the car off and took possession of it even though I told the assessor that I would be the judge of keeping the car or not, not him; I only wanted his opinion on the damage as I could have repaired it myself. I never had a chance to remove the tax disk and get it refunded after that.

If they wrote the car off and paid you for it, the entire car is theirs including the tax disk, removing it would be theft. It is also completely down to the insurance company whether or not you get to keep the salvage, and how much they will take out of your payout for it.

If you believe the compensation was inadequate, it's up to you to show the insurance company that you would be unable to purchase a car in similar condition. If you can provide solid evidence of this the offer will usually be raised.

As for NCB protection, if you ended up with the same number of No Claims years, then it has done it's job. Did you honestly believe it was a "No Premium Increase Protection"?

 

[Biffa]

Problem I have is if you shop around, it doesn't matter how good your protected no-claims is, when you go to another company they will still ask details of any accidents in the past 3 or 5 years. Now tell me that that doesn't affect the quote, regardless of your current NCB with your current insurer.

 

[Barks]

Are you still on your Anti-insurance company due to discrimination crusade?

NCB is awarded to people who do not make fault claims. People who cause accidents cost more money than people who dont, thus they pay more money.

It's quite simple.

NCB is ridiculous. Several posts here have highlighted what a load of rubbish it is. In theory, if NCB is about driving risk, ALL DRIVERS ON ALL POLICIES should be earning their own independent NCB. Also, there should be no such thing as protected/guaranteed NCB as it beats the whole point. So there you go, it's nothing to do with driving risk and everything to do with profit/ripping off consumers. The fact some of my mates (21) have 4 years NCB does not make them a safer driver than I am, I was just unfortunate not to have a policy in my own name. Classic example.

Secondly, I don't pay a penny of my own hard earned money towards insurance as I don't own the car I drive/share. However, I do like to question the fairness of how the insurance industry trade. I have accepted that women crash less often. I have accepted men account for more serious accidents.
What fills me with rage is adding a girl identical to myself (age, history etc) puts the quote down by £100. Changing the gender of that hypothetical driver to Male puts the policy up by circa £1,500.
Statistics aside, that is grossly and sickeningly unfair, especially given we are talking about a 21 year old driver where AGE is far more important than gender.

It would be perfectly acceptable if either:

a) the difference in price was not so substantial, given the age in question of both the hypothetical male or female drivers were older than 21.
or
b) the (entirely and irrefutably but widely accepted) FALSE assumption that having a FEMALE as a named driver decreases the risk of that policyholder being involved in an accident. Do the insurance companies not realise that 95% of blokes driving fast cars ONLY add women to put the premium down, they are very rarely ever let anywhere near the vehicle.

That seems perfectly fair to me, anyone else agree?

 

[rypt]

Statistics aside, that is grossly and sickeningly unfair, especially given we are talking about a 21 year old driver where AGE is far more important than gender.

You are FORCED to have insurance and there are only aobut 5 or 6 udnerwriters for the said insurance.
It's almost a monopoly, the companies know that they have a more or less guaranteed customer base, so why bother to compete with each other serverely.

 

[Dogbreath]

NCB is ridiculous. Several posts here have highlighted what a load of rubbish it is. In theory, if NCB is about driving risk, ALL DRIVERS ON ALL POLICIES should be earning their own independent NCB.

No they should not, think about this from the insurance companies point of view. You have a policy with 2 or more named drivers. The main driver will be the policy holder of course (unless you are 'fronting').

How does the insurance company know how much driving the named drivers have actually done? Whilst they are named on the policy, they may have never driven the car, or maybe driven it very infrequently and therefore do not represent the same risk, and do not earn NCB.

I could understand your argument if you called for that 1 years worth of NCB to be split between the drivers according to use, but this would be completely impractical to regulate.

What fills me with rage is adding a girl identical to myself (age, history etc) puts the quote down by £100. Changing the gender of that hypothetical driver to Male puts the policy up by circa £1,500.
Statistics aside, that is grossly and sickeningly unfair, especially given we are talking about a 21 year old driver where AGE is far more important than gender.

That was quite funny to read, "statistics aside"? Risk is calculated from statistics, how can they be put aside? And at 21 I think you'll find the statistics show (and in fact common knowledge shows) that male drivers present a considerably greater risk than females.

 

[Dogbreath]

You are FORCED to have insurance and there are only aobut 5 or 6 udnerwriters for the said insurance.
It's almost a monopoly, the companies know that they have a more or less guaranteed customer base, so why bother to compete with each other serverely.

They do compete with each other, but profit margins are not great. Do you actually realise that the premiums they receive do not cover the cost of the claims? They make their profit only by the investing the money they receive from premiums, so with the current market situation you should be prepared for some hefty premium increases IMO.

 

[Joe T]

Answer: moral hazard.

End of thread.

 

[jumpy]

If they wrote the car off and paid you for it, the entire car is theirs including the tax disk, removing it would be theft. It is also completely down to the insurance company whether or not you get to keep the salvage, and how much they will take out of your payout for it.

If you believe the compensation was inadequate, it's up to you to show the insurance company that you would be unable to purchase a car in similar condition. If you can provide solid evidence of this the offer will usually be raised.

As for NCB protection, if you ended up with the same number of No Claims years, then it has done it's job. Did you honestly believe it was a "No Premium Increase Protection"?

Trouble is, they took the car away before I had even agreed to scrap it or whatever - I went to pick the car up after discussing with the assessor that I just wanted him to look and tell me if there was anything more than superficial damage (there wasn't) and when I got there it had already been removed to another garage prior to going to the storage depot. At the time the vehicle still belonged to me and no monies had been agreed upon or received by myself.

When I was told I wouldn't get the vehicle back I enquired as to the value of replacing the car I was given the price of a grotty rot box from a nearby garage and told it was fair value for my vehicles age. Despite numerous other vehicles shown to compare the unfairness of the value I was offered, they refused to budge.
Then to top it off, the insurance company tried to tell me that if I took the money offered, I would then loose my supposedly protected ncb and my premium would return to what it had been when I first learned to drive at the age of 17 - a hike of about 400 quid per year. It was either that or they generously offered to let me keep my ncb at the expense of halving the money they were to pay out for the car being written off. I was also informed that at no point would I be able to buy back the car and repair the damage to the front wing and bumper/headlight assembly, as it was not allowed any more.

After about 2 months of letters and many many phone calls we eventually ended up with the pittance they offered and managed to argue keeping the ncb, but only after they received a letter from my solicitor regarding the matter.

The icing on the cake was the letter and fine from the dvla; after all the car was now 'the property of the insurance company' so surely in six months they'd have had plenty of time to sort out the relevant paperwork as they promised they would. Yet more of my time and money sorting out something that insurance company were supposed to have dealt with.

I expected to get what I paid for and for an insurance company to not try and screw me at every turn and evade their side of the bargain. After all, why did I pay them several times the value of the car over a number of years, if not for the eventuality of an accident? It should never have been the case that they baulked at every turn, constantly trying to avoid anything but the barest minimum of responsibility or monetary recompense. As far as I am concerned, the insurance company were just trying it on in order to incur as little expense to themselves as possible... after they'd taken my money of course.

All in all, what should have been a simple matter, dragged on for months and left me without a vehicle or any money with which to buy another during that time.
Needless to say I changed companies as soon as I was able to.
It may also be of note that the independent assessor garage used by that insurance firm were done for fraud and ringing cars (amongst other vehicle related offences) about 2 years later.

Had my dealings with insurance companies over the years been more positive and less protracted and difficult, perhaps I might feel less aggrieved by the inconvenience of having to have anything whatsoever to do with them. To say I don't like insurance companies and the way they operate, with the law to back them up against you so you have no other choice except to pay out each year or month with the prospect of getting very little in return, is putting it reasonably. My personal feelings towards them are, shall we say, less than reasonable.

 

[The_Abyss]

Insurance is entirely about discrimination, and that is the way it should be. Lower risk, lower cost. Higher risk, higher cost. And then accidents happen to all groups, but some are more likely than others.

Just deal with it.

 

[Barks]

That was quite funny to read, "statistics aside"? Risk is calculated from statistics, how can they be put aside? And at 21 I think you'll find the statistics show (and in fact common knowledge shows) that male drivers present a considerably greater risk than females.

I didn't disagree, I said the difference in price is not acceptable.
I guess generally speaking men drive cars for driving thrill, women drive them to get from A-B and to show off their wealth. So we get more out of them despite being raped on car insurance premiums

 

[Dogbreath]

I guess generally speaking men drive cars for driving thrill, women drive them to get from A-B and to show off their wealth.

Right, and young males tend to do silly things, especially with peer pressure, which is why they present such a high risk to the insurance. It probably seems very unfair to you, but insurance companies aren't specifically sexist or ageist, they are "risk-ist". Sadly with the enormous increase in compensation claims, and the very poor performance of the market, premiums will be increased to remain profitable, and the higher risk drivers will get hit harder.

They have no implicit bias against young males, any more than they have bias against an older person with a DD record. They simply have to balance their risk with the premium.

 

[DampCat]

You are FORCED to have insurance and there are only aobut 5 or 6 udnerwriters for the said insurance.
It's almost a monopoly, the companies know that they have a more or less guaranteed customer base, so why bother to compete with each other serverely.

There are far more than 5 or 6 underwriters.

 

[DampCat]

NCB is ridiculous. Several posts here have highlighted what a load of rubbish it is. In theory, if NCB is about driving risk, ALL DRIVERS ON ALL POLICIES should be earning their own independent NCB. Also, there should be no such thing as protected/guaranteed NCB as it beats the whole point. So there you go, it's nothing to do with driving risk and everything to do with profit/ripping off consumers. The fact some of my mates (21) have 4 years NCB does not make them a safer driver than I am, I was just unfortunate not to have a policy in my own name. Classic example.

Ok, you obviously just don't want to pay insurance. So you know what? Don't. then see what happens. Nothing that anyone will write here will convince you out of your silly little crusade against those big ol' mean insurance companies.

Several posts? Oh, well there you go. That's proof then. Those several posts must be correct... right? Several posts have pointed out exactly what NCB id for, how it works and why it is a good thing. Why can't those several posts be correct? Why only the several posts that you want to believe?

Protected NCB is rarely offered to people with less than max bonus. When it is, you pay a 10% to 15% premium for the luxury. Do you understand what that means? It maeans you're paying the insurer MORE MONEY. Thus, they have MORE MONEY to deal with claims that may be made, thus they dont need to take MORE MONEY when you've had one (which would be reduction in NCB). Prot NCB also only lasts for ONE claim. 2 claims and you're back with the rest of the crowd.

The fact that some of your mates have 4 years NCB DOES mean they're safer drivers because they have 4 years PROOF that they are safe drivers. You dont. For all they know, you SUCK at driving and will kill 50 people in your first year. Your friends are STATISTICALLY far less likely to do that.

Why cant you understand that? What is so difficult for you? You put more in, you get more out.