Car Insurance

The main difference between these two cover options is the level of protection given to your own vehicle. A Third Party Fire and Theft car insurance policy covers any damage to a third party, or their property, resulting from an incident. It also provides cover for damage to your own vehicle, caused by fire or theft. Meanwhile, a Comprehensive car insurance policy will cover all of the above, plus the costs of damage to your own vehicle, if you’re involved in an incident.

Your no claims discount, or ‘Bonus’ as it is often called, is the amount of years you have held a car insurance policy and not claimed on it. Based on the number of years you have been claims free your insurer will reduce your premium.

Named driving experience works on a similar basis to no claims discount. If you are named as a driver on someone else’s car insurance policy, you will earn a discount for your claims free years on that policy. You should contact your insurance broker to confirm your named driving experience entitlement.

Once you build up several years of claims free driving, your No Claims Bonus will help you get a reduction on your premiums. Because of this, many drivers will want to protect their no claims bonus. There are two options which allow you to do this, Full No Claims Bonus Protection and Step Back Bonus Protection.

What Step Back Bonus Protection actually means: If you make a claim or someone else makes a claim against you, you will lose part of your no claims bonus. For example, if your no claims discount is 50% and you have a claim, then it could step back to as low as 30%. Therefore, giving you less years no claims to avail of higher discounts on your policy. On average, in the event of a claim, drivers with Step Back Bonus Protection lose two years no claims i.e. their bonus may be ‘stepped back’ from 5 to 3 years, which in turn will affect the no claims discount.

With Full Bonus Protection, in the event of a claim against your own car insurance, you will not lose any of your built up years of no claims. In turn, this means that the discount you receive from your insurer will be protected in the event of a claim. Always read the small print of your policy documents for any exclusions or limitations on your car insurance policy regarding No Claims Bonus Protection.