NCB on a commercial.

Third3ye

Hi guys. Looking for some car insurance advice here as Im not too familiar with the ins and outs of it and feel Im being taken for a ride.

I'll try to keep it simple.
I've been driving in my own name for 10 years now without any claims. I sold my car 2 years ago and bought a van as I needed one to transport my motorcycles. I tried to insure in privately as I dont own a business or a farm and I would be using it privately but I was told that I had no option but to insure in commercially. My insurance company accepted my no claims bonus which I had built up on private policies and got my discounts.

So I insured it commercially and had to tax it privately as I was told I could not avail of commercial tax.

In these two years I have started a small family and no longer required a van. I also didnt like carrying kids in the front of the van. I sold my van last month and bought an estate car.

I got a great quote with a different company so I bought the private insurance online. I then cancled my commercial insurance and asked the company to e-mail my proof of no claims discount to my new company. That was all fine but now it gets messy.

Upon recieving proof of no claims, my new insurance provider contacted me to say that they cannot accept my NCB as it was earned on a commercial vehicle in the past two years and that essentially my no claims bonus is now non existant!!! I can not understand the logic in this. My ncb was accepted when changing from private to commercial but cannot be accepted the other way around. Is this correct?

Has anybody else had a similiar experience? My insurance company now want an additional 700 euro from me which I certainly cannot afford.

Liam McPoyle

Third3ye wrote: »

Hi guys. Looking for some car insurance advice here as Im not too familiar with the ins and outs of it and feel Im being taken for a ride.

I'll try to keep it simple.
I've been driving in my own name for 10 years now without any claims. I sold my car 2 years ago and bought a van as I needed one to transport my motorcycles. I tried to insure in privately as I dont own a business or a farm and I would be using it privately but I was told that I had no option but to insure in commercially. My insurance company accepted my no claims bonus which I had built up on private policies and got my discounts.

So I insured it commercially and had to tax it privately as I was told I could not avail of commercial tax.

In these two years I have started a small family and no longer required a van. I also didnt like carrying kids in the front of the van. I sold my van last month and bought an estate car.

I got a great quote with a different company so I bought the private insurance online. I then cancled my commercial insurance and asked the company to e-mail my proof of no claims discount to my new company. That was all fine but now it gets messy.

Upon recieving proof of no claims, my new insurance provider contacted me to say that they cannot accept my NCB as it was earned on a commercial vehicle in the past two years and that essentially my no claims bonus is now non existant!!! I can not understand the logic in this. My ncb was accepted when changing from private to commercial but cannot be accepted the other way around. Is this correct?

Has anybody else had a similiar experience? My insurance company now want an additional 700 euro from me which I certainly cannot afford.

That sounds odd tbh.

If it was just a standard commercial ie a small van, which I assume it is, and was in your own name, there is no reason that they should not have accepted it. All insurers that I've ever dealt with would accept a bonus like that. There could be a case for argument if you had been driving an artic or something but other wise I don't see what their issue is.

Who is the new insurer?

I'm assuming it's one of these "pop up" crowds like 25 plus.

vandriver

When I moved from a van to a car,there was no problem bringing my full ncb with me.

Third3ye

No its a fairly well known company. Im weary about naming the company until, at least, I get to the bottom of the situation just in case I am indeed wrong here.

I was driving a Renault Trafic which, I would consider a small commercial.

Big Nasty

vandriver wrote: »

When I moved from a van to a car,there was no problem bringing my full ncb with me.

You need to change your username so.

Liam McPoyle

Third3ye wrote: »

No its a fairly well known company. Im weary about naming the company until, at least, I get to the bottom of the situation just in case I am indeed wrong here.

I was driving a Renault Trafic which, I would consider a small commercial.

That's surprising so.

Best advice I can give is to ring them tomorrow and get them to explain exactly why its not acceptable and to provide you something in writing to that effect. Its possibly a case that whoever you are dealing with is a but confused, I'd ask to speak to a supervisor or manager if you don't get any traction.

vandriver

Big Nasty wrote: »

You need to change your username so.

Exvandriver just doesn't have the same ring to it!

jinkybhoy

I've heard of this a few times but only real issue most insurers would have is that the reg on the bonus is different from the car you are insuring - you just explain got rid of van etc - Shouldn't be an issue using a commercial bonus on private car or vice versa.

Eric Cartman

I've seen a few companies that like doing this. call a few different insurance companies and make sure to mention it to them when getting the quote.

I was always lead to believe that your NCB could never swap from one to the other (private > commercial or vice versa).


However, i was also always lead to believe that an unused NCB had something like 3-5 years before it 'expired'. In other words, if you stopped driving, or moved to a different type of policy, your NCB would still be valid unless it went over a set time period (3 years or 5 years I think).


I know my brother did the same thing as you, OP, but had the van for about 4 years. When he bought a private car again, his NCB was still valid (but none of the years spent driving the van counted).

So if you had 3 years NCB on your car, moved to your van for 3 years and never crashed, when you switch back to private again, you'd only have 3 years NCB (instead of 6), but it would/should still be valid.


obviously something that changes with each insurance company? They really need to re-do the insurance in this country so it's the person that's being insured and the car isn't relevant (or at least, certainly not the class of car, anyway).