esure acts to help safer drivers

From tomorrow (Sunday 20 April), esure car insurance will be replacing its standard no claim discount protection with ‘protection for life' at no extra cost - giving drivers a guaranteed discount level regardless of any claims made throughout the life of their policy with the company.

According to research from esure, many drivers don't understand that paying to protect their valuable no claim discount comes with certain caveats and it isn't as protected as they might think. In fact, 37 per cent of drivers are not aware that there is usually a set limit to the number of claims they can make on their policy before their discount protection is overridden, reducing their no claim discount dramatically. Insurers may allow no more than one ‘at fault' claim in the first year and no more than two over three years, rather than unlimited claims.

Unavoidable incidents can affect any driver at any time - no matter what their driving ability - such as vandalism, animal damage, car park scrapes, falling masonry or trees, and so on. ‘Protection for life' will give safe drivers peace of mind that an unfortunate incident on the road, as well as standard ‘fault' accidents and thefts, will not cause them to exceed the limits of standard protection and so ‘step down' the no claim discount scale.

This is not just available to new customers - existing esure policyholder customers will benefit from this enhanced policy benefit. Every policyholder who has already opted for standard discount protection will automatically be upgraded to the new ‘protection for life' cover from 20 April. The benefits will be applied retrospectively to current protected policies so that claims that may have already occurred since last renewal won't affect customers' future discount levels.

Mike Pickard, Head of Risk and Underwriting at esure said: "Our ‘protection for life' will give peace of mind to drivers with us - and those who subsequently join us - that their protected no claim discount level remains safe even if they're unlucky enough to suffer more than the occasional claim.

"We have long believed there are millions of drivers who make a single claim and then find their discount reduced because of a second incident that may be beyond their control. Thousands of cars each year are damaged by animals, falling roof tiles and vandals - where there's no other insurer to pay up - as well as the millions of usual bumps and scrapes.

"Drivers should check the small print for the no claim discount protection of their current policy to see how protected they would actually be if the unexpected did happen. We believe that safe drivers who have earned their maximum no claim discount from driving claim free deserve to be fully protected."

Although it only costs motorists a small additional premium to protect their no claim discount, 38 per cent of eligible drivers with over 4 years of claim free driving decide not to pay to protect it. These drivers are at risk of losing a proportion of the no claim discount that they've built up if they are unfortunate enough to incur an ‘at fault' claim.

In fact, a third (32 per cent) of eligible drivers have fallen into the ‘it won't happen to me' trap and cite the fact that they've never had an accident so don't think it's worth paying for, as a reason for not protecting their valuable no claim discount. Yet many claims aren't related to driver ability at all and can't be avoided.