Being a new customer of Hastings direct I was astonished to see that my many years of no claims discount (as submitted) had been reduced to 9 years by hastings when i was attempting to check the new policy details. It seems that whatever your actual NCD, if it is more than 9 years, Hastings directs' system only allows a maximum of 9 years to be entered and that this reduction is done automatically without notice (other than showing the substituted amount buried in the policy details). Both my prior insurance suppliers' systems had no issues with recording and reporting NCD in double figures. I noticed this and complained, to be told that if I sent evidence of my NCD, they would note it and report it if I left them..... Which leads me to assume that if someone does not notice this and raise a complaint, then anyone with more than 9 years NCD will lose it or potentially at least be put in an awkward position at next renewal time. This has clearly been occurring for some years and disturbingly the following related thread seems to indicate that Hastings will do nothing when this is found at a later stage. Referred Thread 217431 Problem with proof of NCD http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?217431-Problem-with-Proof-of-NCD-(no-claims-discount)

Hi all, I've tried searching for an answer, however I can't find anything definitive, so here goes:- as I understand it,the NCD is for the person, I say this, as if you have an accident you (the person) lose your NCD regardless of what car, van, lorry (unless you have a protected NCD, or would affect your NCD Also reinforced by the fact that if someone driving your car on a TP insurance on their policy, you don't lose your NCD. now, then, if the NCD is for the vehicle and not the insured owner, why, when you change your car do you not have to start the NCD process all over again. The whole insurance industry appears to be one big [problem]. I'd really like someone to explain in simple terms what this is all about......Or if you believe that car insurance should be for the driver, maybe lobby the insurance companies to be realistic and sensible......Is this legal even. Why should I, a driver with no accidents or claims should pay £195/year for the car I have now, but a second car would cost me nearly £1k. I shan't be driving the two cars at the same time, and whatever car I wont be driving will be locked up securely Comments explanations would be very much appreciated. is there some way I can get a better fairer deal?? Thanks all Ken

Please forgive me if the terms aren't 100% correct. Different insurers do their calculations differently, but this is my understanding of the basic process: No Claims Discount, normally rated in years, is a discount given which insurers apply to your actual calculated 'rate' or risk. Different insurers use different amounts for the years earned - no consistency. Your Rate or Risk is calculated based on some industry calculations tailored by individual insurers, which consider what is the likelihood of having to pay out to you, and is based on many factors including age, location, what you are insuring, and whether you have had any losses/accidents previously among many other things. The premium (what you pay) is the rate or risk calculation, with any discounts, including no claims discount, applied. So in the example of car insurance, an accident will increase the base calculation of your 'insurance' rate or risk. Any discounts, no claims or otherwise, are then applied to the amount calculated. Example: Insurance before accident with NCD = £200 (your risk calculation) - 40% of £200 no claims discount = £200 - £80 = £120 to pay Insurance after accident with protected NCD = £400 (your increased risk calculation) - 40% of £400 protected no claims discount = £400 - £160 = £240 to pay Insurance after accident without protected NCD = £400 (your increased risk calculation) - 0% of £400 no claims discount = £400 - £0 = £400 to pay Protected no claims discount protects the percentage of discount applied to the base risk calculation and is not protection from an increased basic risk calculation and hence increased cost of cover. Hope this helps in understanding. More info http://www.confused.com/car-insurance/guides/how-car-insurance-is-calculated

Its been almost a year since I took up Hastings Direct insurance and discovered they immediately turned my 17 years no claims discount into 9 years. I complained and was told I would not lose any discount despite their systems only logging up to 9 years, and despite a number of reports here that customers who did not notice that Hastings had truncated their NCD DID lose their NCD above 9 years. The renewal of my fully comp (which apparently isn't actually what I understand as fully comp with Hastings I have since discovered) with 17 years protected no claims at taking it out is being shown on the document as 9 years NCD. Luckily I haven't had to make a claim and hence be sold of to some third party shyster company to inflate costs and require me to sign credit agreements for cover that should be included in a fully comp policy ..... Lets see what happens for me.

Hi All, Seem to find myself on here everyday at the minute ! I am cancelling my car insurance as presently have no valid driving license and recently learnt the insurance isnt worth jack while I dont have a valid license, but am keen to keep hold of my No Claims Discount (I have the maximum 9 years). Can anyone confirm that the NCD is valid for at least 2 years while it sits in situ and not tagged to a policy? I've got this 2 years from various googling, but all the posts are years old so I wanted to check this is still the case. Also, when I cancel, what should I do - Ask them to post me my proof of no claims, or should I leave that until I actually need it when I take out a new policy later this year? Thanks, James

If this question has been asked before, I couldn't find it.. Please can a knowledgeable person explain to me why NCD is connected to a combination of person AND vehicle ? Surely NCD is applicable to the person driving, cars don't have accidents on their own ! This topic has vexed me for a while and only when I stumbled on this forum did I think I might get a proper answer from someone in the industry. I'm primarily interested in the logic behind the thinking, I'm not interested in a flame war, the rules are the rules, but I really don't understand the logic. Thanks

I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. A while back some one bumped my wifes car while she was parked in a car park putting shopping in the boot. Other party admitted liability. Wife contacted her insurance and notified them but stated that she was unwilling to shell out the £350 excess and that she would wait till other party had contacted them to confirm liability. Eventually wife got a text from her insurance saying that other party had admitted liability and the excess would be waived. Car got repaired and returned. All good so far. Now she's been contacted by her insurance saying she will have to consent to their lawyers starting a claim action against other party insurers as they are now refusing to pay. Fair enough. What's got my goat is they're refusing to reinstate her NCD until they get their money back. In view of the fact that the other party have already admitted liability are they within their rights to do this?

Hello, I had ecar insurance for the past 3 years. They offered me a renewal of more than 3000 a year. I asked for the proof of NCD and they sent me a letter saying that I had 0 years NCD and inviting me to renew. The only incident that I had was when another car hit me from the back while I was stationary at a roundabout. I notified them as I was supposed to, was given ref. no.and told they would contact me if there was any development. They never did. I didn't claim as there was no damage. I tried to contact them now but to no avail. The only companies that offer me 'quite' cheap insurance are underwritten by Souther Rock, same as ecar. They include Asda, Admiral, Diamond, Sheila's Wheels.

After very carefully shopping around to find the cheapest deal to insure my car, I bought a policy with Quotemehappy.com on 30th September. On Monday 1st October I purchase my new car, however I still needed to sell my old car. I am disabled and due to illness this took longer than anticipated. I explained this to Quotemehappy.com and arranged for an extension to send in my proof of No Claims' Discount, which was granted until 22nd October. On 19th October, I sold my old car and phoned Admiral (my previous insurers) to cancel my policy and request that my confirmation be sent out. As this was going to take a few days, I asked if this letter could be attached to an e-mail and sent to me, so that I could upload it on the Quotemehappy website. The staff member said this was fine, however the e-mail I received was not what I had asked for, although it did confirm the necessary details. (Upon my third phone call to Admiral, I was informed that it was not possible for them to attach a copy of the posted letter of confirmation and I would have to wait for the hard copy to arrive). I went ahead and uploaded the proof to the QMH website, however after several attempts it did not seem to be going through as I was being returned to the same page and no confirmation was given or e-mail received (after some time). Thus, I e-mailed QMH to inform them of this issue and forwarded them the confirmation e-mail from Admiral, adding that I could scan in and forward the letter once I had received it via the post. As their system says, replies to e-mailed correspondence takes a few working days, so I didn't take any further action. Today, 24th October, I received a text and e-mail from QMH to say that my policy has been cancelled. Due to the company being online only, I cannot call to speak to anyone about this. I am very annoyed and worried as I am disabled and dependent on my car for mobility. I cannot risk being uninsured, yet I feel I have done everything I can to fulfill with the necessary procedures and have been penalised for a system error which was not my fault. Please advise...

Hi I'm waging war on some of the greedy corporations I've had to deal with lately!! I hate them with a passion right now. Anyway, I'm having a problem cancelling my car insurance policy with Co-op/Eco Insurance. I was insured with the Co-op for years up until March 2010 when my car was written off. Not my fault and claim was paid for by the other party. I had a full NCD when my insurance ended at that point (as I didn't replace the car). In June 2012 I took over the ownership of my daughter's Clio (1.2 ltr teeny weeny engine). I went onto Compare the Market for an insurance quote. I included in the fields that I had full NCD and was presented with several quotes. The small print in these quotes indicated that my NCD policy was not to be more than 2 years since it was active, but the Co-op one said they accepted up to 3 years since you last had a policy in your name. So I selected this and went ahead with the quote - can't remember whether I completed the transaction online or whether I rang them. Anyway, I get all my docs through with a request for proof of NCD. I told them to check their files etc. But it turns out that my policy is with Eco insurance even though the Co-op name also appears as the most prominent on the paperwork. Eco only accept up to 2 years since your last policy. The Co-op website itself (I accessed this via the car insurance link on my Co-op banking website) clearly states 3 years. So, Eco want to charge me a stupid amount of money to insure this little car. If I was going to lose my NCD I could have accepted any number of other quotes cheaper than Co-op (Eco). They won't accept this even though I've been arguing with them for months about it. I've reported them to the ombudsman who has sent me a form to complete and has also written to them advising of my complaint. I have to wait for them to respond. However, my last conversation with them they said it would cost me £200 to cancel. I refuse to pay it, so they will not cancel the policy, therefore making it impossible for me to insure with another company. It is costing me £130/month to insure the Clio when previously I had a beefy Mercedes insured for £35/month. I feel robbed, genuinely. Not just because of the price hike but because of the way they handle things eg putting me with Eco insurance and not the Co-op proper??? I can't figure it out. I've tried recreating the compare the market set up but the quotes page appears different than it did in June and I'm not getting that small print anymore that convinced me to take out the Co-op insurance in the first place. And they do not state up front that they will shunt you over to Eco when you take out a policy. Call centre staff are the worst in the world to deal with and I've got to the point where I don't want to call them anymore. I feel like they treat people as dirt and have no regard for people's rights as customers. They won't accept they've mislead me in any way. They just don't get it. I took out insurance with the Co-op - not Eco. How can I be at fault? Any advice before I complete these forms? I still haven't received a response from the Co-op/Eco or whoever. I'm wondering whether I need to write to the insurer to formally lodge my complaint even though I've told them over the phone that this is a formal complaint. And who do I write to anyway? Confused.com Thanks Eve

Hi I have been with my current insurers for 2 years. I went to them with 3 or 4 years NCD and I would have had to prove this by faxing them my renewal letter from previous insurers. However I am now leaving current insurers and when I had my renewal notice they have quoted it as 11 years (should be 5 or 6 years). I have phoned them twice to question this and both times they have told me it is correct. What should I do? Get new insurance with 5 years NCD or quote the 11? It does look like someone somewhere has made an error (not me). I can't find an e-mail with a scanned copy of NCD from 2 years prior so I must have faxed it to them. I had been getting quotes with 5 years NCD prior to the renewal letter and then I started to get quotes with 11 years. Are the new insurers likely to dig into my NCD further if I send them the renewal letter that shows 11? It's not just the renewal letter that shows 11 either, my 'personal details' section on the customer portal also show 11. Advice would be appreciated

I recently took out a new insurance policy after finding a cheaper deal with a new company and as I was going through the process over the phone it came up that a claim had been made on my policy back in March 2010 on a different car. I was the main driver at the time but the claim for £150 was made by one of the named drivers on the policy. I was naive regarding the No Claims Bonus and assumed that as I wasn't driving when the claim happened, I didn't need to put it on my own policy. I also honestly thought that an NCB was valid for as long as you had been driving without a claim, regardless of whether you were the main driver or not. For that reason, I put down 5 years on last year's policy, which came through on my renewal notice as 6 (how long I've been driving). When I set up the old policy last year, the claim wasn't brought up by the old insurance company so I didn't even think about it or realise I had to to include it under my name. Now the new company need to see my proof of NCB (the renewal notice) but the info on it doesn't match my new correct policy, which has 2 years NCB and the claim included. Basically, what will happen when I send in the proof of NCB? I cannot stress enough how much the error was an honest mistake.

Hi In May of this year I called Hastings asking for advise about a potential claim. I did not make a claim and cost the company nothing. They have now removed my NCD which has increased my renewal from £400-£600 (using price comparison sites) Can they do this and how do I get my NCD back as, as far as I am concerned no claim was actually made. Please Help! Thanks