Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. | Motoring discussion | Back Room Forum

Sun 23 Feb 2020 15:31

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - catsdad

The insurance on my wife's car runs out in early March and we have decided to change insurer from that point. This is something we've done a few times over the years without issue. In the past none has asked for NCB evidence but this one has. I won't name them for now but they are a household name.

Anyway we have paid for the new insurer for the new policy to apply from the end of the old policy and duly provided the current insurer's renewal papers showing the correct reg no, dates, NCB , exact time of insurance end etc. We expected this to be just a formality. Now the new insurer has written saying we can't have the NCB as you can't have an NCB on more than one car at the same time. We have rechecked what we sent and all details are correct and the reg and car details are right in the new policy papers - although I will come to a small format difference later

My wife spent half an hour today with their call centre trying to find out what the issue is as the renewal papers we sent only refer correctly to one car, the Mazda. And it's just reinsuring as the old policy lapses. The agent was very vague initially saying they could give us the NCB until we cancel the existing policy. However when my wife pointed out it was lapsing naturally as per the renewal papers, the agent eventually said that had not received the current renewal NCB evidence. This is odd as it was emailed and their letter said nothing about not having received our email and where is the two cars issue coming from?

We have resubmitted the renewal NCB info but given we are doing something that must happen seamlessly thousands of times a day, it's odd.

I can only think of two possibilities as to the real issue. She changed her car in January and I wonder if the new insurance company ran a policy check and it still comes up on some insurance database as the old car? Or I noticed that the new company has quoted the reg in the format AA NNAAA rather than the correct AANN AAA. Is that creating a mis-match that the computer sees as two cars? But the fact that they identify it correctly as our Mazda suggests that not the issue. My wife mentioned it to the agent but again didn't get a clear response.

Having already paid we don't want to pull out and possibly complicate our insurance history. Hopefully they will resolve it but meanwhile has any body any idea as to what's going on?

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Sun 23 Feb 2020 15:54

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - thunderbird

In my personal experience your current insurer will not provide details of NCB until after the policy has ended. If they did and you then had an accident and lost your NCB the info you had given the new insurer would be incorrect.

But any new insurer that I have changed to has been happy to charge the quoted price with NCB deducted on the basis that if there is not proof either you pay the full amount or the policy is cancelled.

Seems to me you are dealing with a couple of numpties.

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Sun 23 Feb 2020 16:06

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - catsdad

Thunderbird, yes the NCB info is not strictly accurate until the end but if they did this with all transferring customers their business would tank. There must be something else here.

In any case insurance contracts are covered by good faith so if you lie you are not insured.

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Sun 23 Feb 2020 16:08

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - gordonbennet

I too have only been asked once to provide proof of NCD, which is normally stated on the renewal notice from the current insurer, they received the proof and that was that.

If this is the standard of competence so far i'd be looking elsewhere, and if still within the 'cooling off period' i might be inclined to go elsewhere quickly.

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Sun 23 Feb 2020 16:25

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - Bromptonaut

This year I removed my insurance from LV to Direct Line. No need to produce proof of NCB as Direct Line could apparently 'see' my entitlement via one or another of the insurance industry's shared databases.

Transferring NCB when migrating at renewal must happen thousands of times every day. There must be some oddity with Catsmum's circumstances or utter bone headedness on part of the new insurer or its agent.

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Sun 23 Feb 2020 16:35

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - thunderbird

or utter bone headedness on part of the new insurer or its agent.

There are good agents and totally rubbish one. Take an experience a friend of mine had when he owned a BMW that was fitted with Run Flat Tyres. He fitted winter tyres and the company were more than happy for those tyres to be of a non run flat type and they greatly improved the car. So when he needed 4 new summer tyres he rang to ask if they would allow him to fit non run flats for the summer as well. He was greeted by an agent who was clearly working in a call centre located in part of the former British Empire and there was a clear language barrier. The best that particular agent could offer was to ask if he wanted to fit 4 flat tyres to his car.

He rang off and tried again getting an agent based in the UK. This agent checked with his underwriter who was happy for the change of tyre providing that the sizes etc remained the same and that they were fitted in a full set of 4 tyres, no part set was permitted.

So off he went, saved money on his tyres and improved the car.

Suggest the OP tries ringing again hoping they get a good agent this time.

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Mon 24 Feb 2020 10:57

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - Engineer Andy

This year I removed my insurance from LV to Direct Line. No need to produce proof of NCB as Direct Line could apparently 'see' my entitlement via one or another of the insurance industry's shared databases.

Transferring NCB when migrating at renewal must happen thousands of times every day. There must be some oddity with Catsmum's circumstances or utter bone headedness on part of the new insurer or its agent.

I was going to say this as well - surely the Insurance industry has these databases precisely for this sort of circumstance. Poor show from them, though it is always a good idea to obtain the proof of NCB (surely they could send it via email in pdf format if a 'document' was required) before switching.

When I transferred from RAC to esure about 17 years ago, the RAC provided one when asked and it turned up about 3-5 days later.

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Mon 24 Feb 2020 12:33

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - catsdad

Thanks for all the comments. My wife has resent the PDF evidence of her NCB together with a covering email restating the issues.

This is not just the knee jerk of a poor agent on the phone. Their letter to us that said we couldn't apply NCB to 2 cars (which is not what we are trying to do) also asked for an additional premium as NCB didn't apply so it's some process that we are falling foul of.

We are still within the 14 day cooling off period but we prefer to get to the bottom of it in case we face an issue wherever we go. I am still of the mind that there is some issue on a central database still showing her previous car which we sold at the end of January even though we have an updated certificate and renewal offer from the current insurer with the new car details.

The new insurer is only about £40 cheaper which was worth pursuing when it was a couple of mouse clicks. Now that's a hassle I don't care much anymore as long as we get insured and keep our NCB. If that means having the new premium refunded and accepting the existing renewal then so be it.

There is always next year.

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Wed 26 Feb 2020 21:57

Mazda 3 - Insurance NCB puzzle. - catsdad

Just to report the outcome. After resubmitting exactly the same NCB evidence, in the same PDF document, the insurer has now confirmed it has accepted this and will honour the NCB.

No explanation for their previous inability to recognise it. Let's be charitable and assume it was an uncharacteristic slip................"oh yes!" ......as they might say ;-)

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