No Claims Bonus
This is the discount that insurers award calculated on the number of previous claim-free years and your No Claims Bonus is central to getting you a cheaper quote when you compare your car insurance online.
The actual value varies between insurers, but a No Claims Bonus of five years can earn a substantial discount of as much as 60-75% off certain aspects of your car insurance quote.
Accrued every year, it builds up to give a maximum of (usually) five years’ No Claims Bonus, and the scale of discount is generally as follows:
- 1 year - 30%
- 2 years – 40%
- 3 years – 50%
- 4 years – 60 %
- 5 years - 65 %
* Some car insurance companies offer further discounts for up to 9 years, with the maximum normally being 70%.
Compare car insurance rates online with thecomparisons.com to find cheaper car insurance with your no claims bonus included.
More Than One Car To Insure?
If you have more than one car, the No Claims Bonus must be earned separately for each car. However, some companies do give a discount for cheaper insurance on a second car. Some also award credit for claim-free years driving a company car, if proof can be provided. Some insurers also allow other named drivers on the policy to build up their own no claims record, ready for when they insure a car of their own.
To avoid confusion regarding your no claims bonus entitlement it’s worth noting that a No Claims Bonus means precisely that - a bonus for making no claims - as opposed to a bonus for not being at fault if you do. So, if your insurer has to pay out because your car is stolen, or under any other circumstances for which you are not to blame, you still lose your No Claims Bonus.
Also, if there is an accident and the car insurance company cannot recover all of their outlay from the other party’s insurer, such as vehicle repair costs, hire car costs, medical bills etc, then the bonus, or at least some of it, will be lost.
The same applies in car accidents where the insurance companies cannot come to an agreement as to who was at fault and as a result have to split the cost of their outlays. Here again, some, or all, of the No Claims Bonus will be lost.
You May Not Lose All Your No Claims Discount...
In some cases, where it is the first claim by a driver with maximum No Claims Bonus, rather than wipe out the whole discount, the insurers may reduce it from, say, five years’ to two. Not all companies offer this though, so it’s worth checking before you decide on an insurer.
Another benefit worth looking out for is car insurance cover that allows you to claim on your own insurance without losing any discount if, at no fault of your own, you are involved in an accident with an identified uninsured driver. Recent reports suggest that 1 vehicle in 20 on our roads has no insurance, and the number could even be as high as 1 in 10.
As you can see from the above options with regards to your No Claims Bonus, it is essential to compare car insurance from different car insurance companies to make sure you are getting the right deal for you.
Calculating No Claims Discounts >>