Dropping to one car - no claim bonus

[ROBBOTOO]

We’re looking to drop to one car early next year as a start to free up money so I can retire early.

DH asked earlier if we can both keep our no claims bonus (currently with different companies) and then keep it moving forward with just one car between us.

I actually don’t know how that all works as we’ve had a car each for so long.

[Sew109]

You can usually keep it for one year after that if not on active policy it goes or at least that was what my insurance broker told me

[meboo]

My understanding (from a few years back so please for check for now) is that you can keep your no claims for a year without using it. As I say, this was a few years ago, but my friend did this by using her no claims one year and then her husband’s the next. This kept them both rolling their no claims forward. With changes to the insurance market I am not sure if this is still economic (ie whether having the policy holder not being the registered keeper every other year May increase the cost )

[Orlando 2004]

I think I was told in the past it will be valid for 2 years from the end of the policy. Found this link and it also suggests 2 years.

moneysupermarket/car...aims-discount/

[bigseve]

We’ve changed the insurance on our 2nd car so that it’s DS’s policy and were advised that i’d lose my no claims after 2 years but they way around this was to swap the policy holder on our 1st car every year between DW and I.

[neilhd]

We dropped down to 1 car a couple of years ago.

We just switch the insurance on the car from me to DW and back again every year to keep them both rolling forward.

[ROBBOTOO]

Thanks everyone. Looks like swapping between who is the named policy holder is the way to go.

[HenrysDad]

When we had less vehicles (I had a Co car), we used to swap the insurance over to the other name every year to maintain both of our NCD.

Not sure how 'correct' that was, but it always went smoothly and when we returned to having multiple vehicles again, we both had full NCD.

Also, there was always the opportunity for a cash back deal each year

[Floridarules]

It’s 2 years, just need to keep an old document for reference.
I sold my car and bought another over a year later (mainly due to Lockdown as didn’t need one) and was with Direct Line. There is an option on DL website to ‘reclaim’ the no claims upto a period of 2 years.

[ROBBOTOO]

Thanks again everyone.

I’m assuming you can insure with any company but just provide the previous year’s NCB?