Transferring a no-claims bonus from the UK

Does anyone know what the crack is with transferring no-claims bonus from the UK to Germany.

I officially have 7 years NCB in the UK and when I get around to buying a car here would like to use this to minimise the insurance costs. Will they accept this?

Also I have actually been driving for about 11 years now and never had an accidents, the only claim being when some Makem bastard decided he fancied a drive in my car whilst I was at University.

I understand that here, they separate accident NCB and theft NCB, is this correct?

Ta in advance.

Dunno about taking over the NCB from the UK.
Here in D you have 3 different parts of an Insurance:

Haftpflicht = 3rd party. Covers damage to other peoples cars and property.
Teilkasko = fire, theft, Glas
Vollkasko = Fully comprehensive insurance. Includes the Teilkasko and also covers your own damage.

Perhaps you should give your UK insurace company a call. Maybe they have an Insurace in Gürmany that they work with. If not, I'm afraid you will be starting at 125%.

Yes that is correct as far as I am aware!

I had a few problems as my no claims certificate from the UK did not have an official stamp on it! But it all got sorted in the end I do not think it is that much of an issue!


I will need to check but I am sure they did not start me at 125%

I had a few problems with this when I first came to Germany because when I cancelled my UK policy and asked for a no-claims bonus they first of all sent me a confirmation which specifically stated that it was only valid in the UK.

After a few irate phone calls I managed to get them to simply write a letter stating that I had been insured for X number of years and had not made any claims, and this was finally accepted by my German insurance company.

The best thing to do is phone a few of the German insurance companies and ask them what they will accept as proof of no claims, then at least you can instruct your UK insurer to give you an NCB letter that will be accepted.

My current UK policy is with Zurich, who I think operate here also. They are listed on the directline.de website when you have to specify your previous insurer anyway.

I also have a letter from before my last renewal from directline in the UK stating I have 7 years NCB, so that could prove useful if I insure with them.

Whenever I have had to deal with my insurance company over the phone they have been a nightmare, mainly due to communication problems with the call centre in india, at one point they wanted an extra £50 per month to cover my car whilst it was over here. However after demanding to speak to someone in the UK I was told the cover was actually included in my policy! SO it will be fun getting some kind of NCB proof.

Like Neil373 I got my UK insurer to send me confirmation, but do ask your german
insurance first if they will accept this, I had no problems with the Provinzial at that
time.

Id be interested to know the outcome, as I am starting to think about buying a car too... and my insurance in th UK ran out last October. I know one guy who tried and tried but never did really get anywhere.

I think maybe there really are too many 'Neils' here!

Neil...

Not at all, we don´t even have enough for a 5 a side team.

Unless of course there are more Neil´s out there hiding behind aliases... Reveal yourselves Neils, step out of the shadows !!!

It's well worth gathering up all the paperwork to do with your insurance record, any renewal notices including those going back more than 7 years. They are worth having as the no claims system here gives you credit for up to 21 years.

I am insured here with Direct Line, as well as offering competitive prices they would, I assume, be quite easy to deal with when transferring accumulated no claims back to Uk.

Neils, it was easier to follow discussions when you were posting in different colours.

That may be true, but when I tried to have my UK no claims taken into account here, the maximum they would recognise was 5 years. That was quite a while ago now, though, so things may have changed in the meantime, particularly following the onslaught of online competition.

Well mine was quite a while ago too (1995) and I got insured at that time with VHV via a broker whose English was good enough that he could make sense of all my paperwork from english insurers. It wasn't just 'earned' no claims that I was demonstrating - some of it was accident free driving with a company car. The point is, if you have anything to show how long you have driven altogether, and your claims history, it's worth hanging on to. Of course whether it is accepted probably depends a lot on how well english documentation is understood and that has a lot to do with who processes the application.

[/b]This is a VERY important point[b]. I had 10 years and got it recognised by HDi, took lots of work though as I'd changed insurers 4 or 5 times in the 10 years and of course they only say full or 3 years rather than the number of actual years. Takes some admin work but worth every penny.