Guide
to Motorcycle insurance
No Claim Bonus / Discount:
A reduction of premium allowed at the
time of renewal to an insured who has made no claim in the
previous period or periods or insurance.
They are now becoming common in motorcycle insurance. The
policy normally sets out a progressive scale which shows
that the maximum bonus in will be reached after four years.
If an insured loses his no claim bonus following a claim
for damage to his vehicle, he can include the loss as an
item in any claim for damages against a third party whose
negligence led to the claim.
No Claim Discount:
The practise of allowing a No Claim
Discount to a motor policyholder merely because he has enjoyed
freedom from claim during a period of insurance is open
to criticism and there is little doubt that the provision
of such a premium discount is liable to abuse.
Consider
two cases in this context. . Insured ‘A’ has
driven accident-free and claim-free for a number of years
and constitutes, for his insurers, what may be described
as a ‘healthy’ risk. After a long ‘clean’
period, however, he is involved in an accident as a result
of which a claim is made under his policy, and the unprotected
maximum No Claim Bonus that he has so assiduously built
up over the years is reduced as a result. Insured ‘B’,
on the other hand, has had a succession of minor ‘bumps’
in recent years and has always met the cost of his own or
a third party’s repairs out of his own pocket, perhaps
because of an excess incorporated into his own policy conditions,
perhaps because the amounts involved are not significant.
Who is to say that insured ‘A’ is a worse risk
than insured ‘B’ simply because ‘A’
has made a claim under his policy and has suffered a reduction
in his No Claim Discount as a result? Insured ‘B’,
with his record, is the client most likely to go out and
have yet another accident with, perhaps, serious consequences
this time for his insurers.
It must be emphasised that the discount
is a ‘No Claim’ discount, not a ‘No Blame’
one. If a claim is made under the policy then the insurers
will usually have suffered financially and it can be seen
as fitting that the No Claim Discount should subsequently
be reduced or withdrawn. Despite this consideration, it
is extremely common for an insured to maintain that he was
not the cause of the accident giving rise to the claim and
even though his insurers may have made a substantial payment
for repairs to the insured vehicle, the insured may not
be able to see why his No Claim Discount should be prejudiced.
The situation becomes even more difficult when the insured
clearly was NOT to blame for the accident but, for some
reason, his insurers have been unable to recover their outlay
from the negligent party who may, for example, have been
uninsured at the time.
|
