Hi – I have car insurance with Admiral and we are looking at getting a family friendly bike wagon. Options under consideration include: Fiat Scudo (Combi) or MPV Glass job or a Mazda Bongo.

Both vehicles in my book are MPVs, unfortunately my book doesn’t count for much and my car insurer says “it’s a van” and the van insurer says that my NCD won’t count.

The issue I have is that I let my car insurance lapse in 2012 (when I had 10 years NCD) because I didn’t need a car and went on as an extra driver on the missus’. This means that the NCD stays valid for 2 years then counting from 5 years (the max) reduces by a year each year. Admiral say I have 3 years NCD the van insurers say I have zip and so the premiums are coming in at around £1500 for a £5K van!

Does anyone have any suggestions on insurers likely to: a) take the NCD b) treat the van as a car?

Thanks!!

A

I know my full car ncd was worthless when I bought a van so it cost a fair bit to start with.
I am now with Aviva and they have done me proud price wise.
Can only recommend you give them a ring and see what happens.

+1 for Aviva, car and van done through them

i have done it before with NFU Mutual for berlingo panel van. they take into consideration my 10yrs NCD when they give me a quote which brought down the price significantly… sadly they don’t cover my postcode now which I find strange as I have them over and over for years 🙁

Thanks guys. I spoke to the guy who has the bongo I was going to look at. Turns out he is already insured by Admiral under a car policy but for me they thought it was a van. Will give them another ring and Aviva too.

Ta.

My T5 ‘van’, which is actually an M1 passenger vehicle but insurers insist it’s a van, is insured with Direct line. They had no problems using my car NCB, even though that NCB had been parked for a year as I rationalised my number of vehicles and insurance policies.

I know my full car ncd was worthless when I bought a van

That sounds like you had a crap insurer.

When I bought my van last year I still had a car insured with Admiral and used my 9 years no claims on that. They didn’t insure vans so I phoned up More Than business insurance, and despite using the no claims on another policy More Than matched it even though it was earned driving a car.

It makes no sense to exclude car no claims experience. You could earn 10 years no claims driving a Citroen 2CV then insure a Ferrari and the insurer wouldn’t bat an eye