No claims discounts, patiently built up over years, can save you hundreds of pounds a year on your car insurance. So it makes sense to protect them. Right?
Possibly not.
“It's not worth the paper it's written on,” said Rick Bech.
Rick paid £30 extra to protect his no claims discount every year for four years. When his wife scraped the car they made a claim and thought nothing of it.
“We ended up having to make a claim and I thought 'brilliant, no problem, we've got the protected no-claims bonus',” he said.
But when the time came to change insurers they mentioned the claim and their premium shot up anyway.
“I then raised the question, why am I protecting my no claims if it does not impact the price of my insurance,” he said.
How no claims discounts REALLY work
Almost 20 million drivers pay to protect their no-claims discount, figures from uSwitch show. But at least one in three of them don't understand how the system works.
“What people don’t realise is that your overall insurance cost is worked out by firstcalculating your premium and then applying your no claims discount,” uSwitch.cominsurance expert Rod Jones explained.
What that means is that, after an accident, you're still getting 30% off. Just 30% off a much higher sum.
“This means despite your protected 6 years' no claims your insurance costs will still go up,” Jones said.
Something many are just not prepared for.
“I felt quite aggrieved that I was paying £30 to protect my no-claims and it simply wasn't doing what it said on the tin,” Rick said.
Why your premiums still rise
Pre crash
Post crash
How to bring your car insurance cost down
We might not be able to stop insurers hiking your premiums, but we can do our best to ensure you're paying as little as possible.
Here are our top three ways we've found for you to save on your car insurance:
1. Tech that saves you money
There are two types of technology that can make insurance cheaper for young drivers. The first is telematics. This is a GPS box that monitors how, where and when you drive, and can send alerts out for bad or dangerous driving. Co-operative insurance estimates adding a telematics box to your car saves young drivers £170 a year on their insurance.
The second type of tech to save you money is a dashcam. These cameras cost from as little as £50, and can save you up to 12.5% on your insurance – which is more than £200 on a typical policy for a 17 year old. And even if you don't get a discount, pretty much all insurers now accept footage from them, meaning if you're in an accident that's not your fault you have a better chance of proving it.
2. Insurance tricks to lower the costs
The first thing to do is compare car insurance quotes. This is what you need to know before comparing quotes .
Oh, and while you are comparing, there are some tricks to getting cheaper insurance without reducing your cover level, we've rounded up 6 of the best here.