Protected NCD - is it a con?

[Golich]

I've been thinking about this over for the last 10mins.

Protecting you NCB is it really worth the money?

Here's my senario; You protect your NCB pay an extra £100 (for example) You have a bump and claim.

The renewal comes through and as per the norm it's always higher. So you shop around. You have to declare you have had an accident/claim in the last 5 years.

"But it was protected," you say.

How do other insurance companies view this. I'm thinking you don't get full no claims with others and your current insurer just pumps up your policy - one way or another they get their money!

[Nige_RS4]

Golich, I was in exactly the same situation myself and decided against paying the extra £85 direct line wanted - I mean it was an extra 20% on top of my premium ! [img]images/graemlins/s4anogaro.gif[/img]

[Jon]

in my experience I do not reccomend protected ncd as it usually costs 10-20% more, and if you had a claim you would drop from 65/60% discount to 40% then to 20% on your next claim so on paper it's a lot of money for little cover.

just my 2p's worth

[RobK]

Oh right, I always thought that if you didn't have protected NCD you would lose it all if you claimed. Does it depend on your insurer or what?

[Dippy]

in my experience I do not reccomend protected ncd as it usually costs 10-20% more, and if you had a claim you would drop from 65/60% discount to 40% then to 20% on your next claim so on paper it's a lot of money for little cover.

just my 2p's worth

Jon,

Whilst I agree that you should think carefully about the protection, my experience does not match your calculation:

My insurer (NFU Mutual) have a 15% flat rate for PNCD (which is a LOT higher than Elephant, but they do cover my mods), but this is applied AFTER the NCD.

So I got PNCD for about £200 more. Without PNCD I would drop to 40% NCD after a claim, and this would push my premium up by about £600 for next year. So it's worth it, not even considering the 50% premium for the year after that, and the risk of premium inflation anyway.

However I do agree with the original concern: If you are likely to change insurers, think twice. I notice that some offer 'guaranteed' NCD, and this clearly is only worth it if you are selling your soul to that company!

[Jon]

a couple of insurers reduce it to zero such as CIS. But on the whole if you pay it for a couple of years the money would be better in the bank.

i.e pay it for a couple of years and then claim and you have made a loss. If you claim for every little thing however it is worth doing!