A “ fault ” claim is recorded when an accident is either:
If a fault claim is recorded, it’s likely to reduce your no-claims bonus if you haven’t protected it. This is normally reduced by 2 years, but insurers should explain in their policy how any reduction in no-claims bonus would be applied.
For example, if you had 4 years unprotected no-claims bonus and you have a fault claim, your no-claims bonus will be reduced to 2 years.
For every year of driving without making an insurance claim, a policyholder is awarded one year of no-claims bonuses.
For example, if you’ve been driving for 4 years and haven’t made a claim, you’ll have built up 4 years ’ no-claims bonuses.
The more years of no-claims bonus you have , the lower the risk you demonstrate yourself to be to your insurer. This means the insurance quote will be cheaper compared to quotes for other drivers in the same circumstances but with a lower no-claims bonus.
The amount of discount for a no-claims bonus isn’t set; it varies between insurers.
Some insurers may limit the number of no claims bonuses you can have. For example, if you’ve been driving for 15 years and haven’t made a claim, and your insurer’s maximum limit is 9 years, it will show on your insurance document that you have 9 years no claim bonus.
Consumers contact us to complain because:
We also see complaints involving a misunderstanding about how no-claims bonuses work. For example, we hear from people who:
As with every case, in reaching a decision about what’s fair and reasonable, we consider:
If there’s been a misunderstanding or confusion about the policy, we’ll look at its terms. We’ll check whether th e information was clearly explained to you when the policy was sold, and how clear the sales process was.
Here’s a bit more detail on what we look at for specific types of complaint:
If a fault claim has been recorded on your insurance record, you may have lost the no-claims bonus you had, or your premiums may have increased.
Where this has happened, we’ll check that your insurer’s decision was in line with the policy terms and conditions. We’ll then make sure it was clearly explained to you that a no-claims bonus would be affected by a fault claim.
If you’ve reported an accident that wasn’t your fault and you don’t want to make a claim, it shouldn’t be treated as a claim by your insurer. However, your no-claims bonus may be affected if they receive a claim from the other driver.
If you’ve claimed for any damage to your car, your no-claims bonus may be affected until your insurer recovers the money from the other driver’s insurer.
We’ve seen complaints from people who say their insurer has paid out for a made-up or fraudulent claim, and they’re worried that their insurance cost will increase because of it.
If we find that fraud was a possibility, we’ll check whether your insurer investigated further before deciding to pay out. If they didn’t, we may say it was unreasonable for them to pay out.
You can find more information about insurance fraud on the Insurance Fraud Bureau’s website.
Even if you report a minor accident, the report will normally stay on your insurer ’ s record – f or example, if you reversed into your own garage wall but decided to pay for the repairs yourself. They will also record it on the shared industry central database. But because your insurer didn’t have to pay out anything, this won’t affect your no-claims bonus. You may have reported a car incident without making a claim, only to find your insurance premiums have gone up when you’ve renewed your policy. The fact an incident has happened, however minor it may be, signals to an insurer that you’re statistically more likely to make additional claims in future than people who haven’t had any incidents. So, your insurer may tell you to report any incident you’re involved in, even if you don’t want to make a claim. If you don’t, they might cancel the policy or refuse to pay a claim in the future. If your premiums have gone up after you’ve reported an incident, we’ll ask your insurer to explain why. We’ll also ask whether there was any other reason for the increase.
You may decide to report an incident without making a claim and pay for any damages yourself. In these cases, the claim should be recorded as “ notification only ” , and there should be no reduction of your no-claims bonus.
You might report an accident, which you say wasn’t your fault and don’t want to claim for . Your insurer should only treat this as a claim if they receive a claim from the other driver – or third party. If they do, it will affect your no-claims bonus until your insurer can work out who’s liable. If you decide to claim for any damage, it will affect your no-claims bonus until your insurer can recover the costs from the other driver’s insurer. But a no-claims bonus is only relevant at the annual renewal of the policy. If it’s been found that you weren’t at fault for the accident by the renewal date, your no-claims bonus won’t be affected, regardless of whether the claim is closed or not.
An extra year of no-claims bonus is only added if you haven’t had any claims in the policy year. So even if you’re not at fault for a claim, you wouldn’t get a no-claims bonus for that year.
We’d expect the premiums on your first vehicle to increase only if your no-claims bonus is transferred to the second vehicle. This is because you will only have one no-claims bonus entitlement, which you can only use on one vehicle at a time.
Your no-claims bonus will always be a whole number. For example, if you cancelled your policy 11 months into a 12 - month policy, you haven’t gone the full year without being involved in a fault incident. So it would be unfair for your insurer to give you a year of no-claims bonus for this period . This means you’d leave your insurer with the same no-claims bonus you came to them with – as long as you ha dn ’t had any fault claims.
You may go to a new insurer with a higher amount of no-claims bonus than they will accept – f or example, if you have 9 years no-claims bonus, but the maximum they apply is 4 . We’d still expect your insurer to provide proof of 9 years no-claims bonus at the end of the policy year, unless they’d always made it clear that they wouldn’t.
Each insurer will have their own rules about how long you have had a no-claims bonus for.
Most will accept a no-claims bonus that’s less than 2 years old, but others may accept less than 3 years. However, they may only accept 3 years if they were the last insurer. Some commercial insurers will only accept no-claims bonuses that are less than a year old.
You can cancel a policy and set up a new policy with another insurer whenever you want, even if a claim is ongoing. But the claim will have an effect on the no-claims bonus if:
We don’t think it’s fair for your insurer to withhold a no-claims bonus you’ve earned. But we might not interfere if they’ve done this because you owe them money.
If you’ve made a claim, you may find that your insurance premiums have increased, even though you have “ protected ” no-claims bonus.
Different insurers have different rules about how the protection applies. In a lot of policies, a protected no-claims bonus means the amount of your no-claims bonus won’t change if a fault claim is recorded. However, this doesn’t mean the price is protected, so you may still see your premiums increase when you renew the policy. We’ll check the policy terms and conditions to make sure they’ve been applied fairly. If they haven’t, we’ll probably tell your insurer to refund any extra money you paid.
The first thing you should do is explain to your insurer what’s happened and why you’re complaining. They need to have the chance to put things right. They have to give you their final response within eight weeks for most types of complaint.
If you’re not happy with their response, or the insurer doesn't reply in time, you can bring your complaint to us. We’ll check it’s something we can deal with, and if it is, we’ll investigate.
Find out more about how to complain
If we think your insurer made a mistake or treated you unfairly, we’ll tell them to put things right. This usually means that they need to put you back into the position you’d have been in if the problem hadn’t happened.
For example, if we think it was unreasonable for your insurer to settle a claim, we’re likely to tell them to change your record to a non-fault claim instead. If we find you’ve been unfairly paying more for your insurance, we’ll also tell them to refund you the extra money.
We’ll also consider whether you’ve experienced any distress or inconvenience as a result of what the business did wrong and whether we think it’s appropriate to award compensation.
Mike complained to us when he was involved in a road accident and his insurer accepted an equal split of liability.
Olivia told her insurer she had hit another car, but wasn't told a claim had been paid until she tried to renew her insurance.
Hassan contacted us after his insurer made an error in his claim about the accident he was involved in.
Fran was suspicious of the injury claim made by a third party. We found the insurer had taken reasonable steps to assess that claim.
Mary told her insurer she had been accused of scratching a car. She was surprised to later discover the insurer had recorded that incident on an external database.
If you’re a business looking for information to help you resolve complaints or want to find out more technical information, you can find more detail about complaints about fault claims and no claims bonuses in the business section of our website .