Insurance Question - Fleet or Personal?

[Okrib]

Hello all,

We take delivery of our Model S on Monday and I have an insurance question.

I have over 20 years protected NCB, no convictions etc. My wife has yet to pass her test!

We will have a Model S and a Model X. The Model S is going to be her car but in the meantime I am going to drive it as the X isn't arriving for a few weeks.

The business is leasing the cars and paying for the insurance. Will I be better going for fleet insurance or individually getting us both insured on the cars? If fleet insurance can anyone recommend someone to contact?

I'm well aware that her insurance will be very high, but in her favour she is 35 at least!

 

[MrBadger]

Whatever you do, make sure that if your new policy cannot use your NCB that it gets 'saved' - you will then (certainly use to be the case) have a couple of years in which to get your NCB back otherwise you will lose it and have to start again. Some companies do give discount if having been on non qualifying insurance but its not the same as NCB, will not accumulate and will probably not be transferrable.

 

[pgkevet]

I'm confused over how all this works now. I haven't made an insurance claim on any car in over 40 years and from the days before I retired I had a second car insured (which was really the wife's) with both of us as drivers of both cars, and no claim on that for the 25yrs+ that it's chain of insurance went. When my old faithful (owned 26yrs) vehicle went in for major engine refurb (with a quoted several months before it was done) I bought another car. I found that unless I stopped insurance on car one and moved it to car three then the best I could get was an introductory NCB of 3 yrs. In other words that NCB goes with each chain of insurance rather then the driver. Also if I used a fleet insurance then any claim would lose the NCB on all vehicles. It all becomes a bit moot when I find that my cheapest quote for the S is currently with LV who only go back 9yrs NCB anyway and while some companies do seem to go back a far as 20yrs the discount stops being much extra after the 9yrs.....
I'd guess (but don't know) that you could insure both cars in your name separately with wie as second driver of one car and in, say, 2 years after your wife passes her test without accident then insure car2 in her name to build her NCB. That assumes she is a partner in the business or has her ar as a business car for use in your business. Confused? I know I am...

 

[MrBadger]

I found that unless I stopped insurance on car one and moved it to car three then the best I could get was an introductory NCB of 3 yrs. In other words that NCB goes with each chain of insurance rather then the driver.

Thats how it works, although I would suggest that the chain of insurance is specific to the policy and main driver and other drivers are just named additional drivers. Named drivers can sometimes subsequently get an introduction discount when taking out a policy in their own right, or if being on a company policy, but this is not the same as a NCB although some insurers may convert it into a nominal number of years NCB going forward.

When you end up wanting to take out an insurance policy (eg a company or specialist policies like classic car) which is not able to take on the NCB from that chain, short of moving it to another policy, it will be lost. Some (all normal?) policies however allow the unused NCB to be saved for a number of years, which in my experience is up to 2 or 3 years, so that within that period of time, if you take out a fresh policy, you can reclaim that NCB and continue it on. But it does require the policy that had the original NCB to give you the proof of NCB for the new insurers - best to get the details of this when terminating the old policy rather than a few years down the line when records may not be so accessible.

 

[bigmike_88]

I'd highly recommend Aviva fleet. We've got a number of cars through them. Awaiting our 2 X model S due during September, but planning on added them onto the Aviva fleet.
Although I think there is a 3 car minimum on most "fleet" policies