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Can I buy off negative claim-free years?

When you have negative claim-free years, this can cause problems when you take out a car insurance. Moreover, a decrease in claim-free years results in less discount and therefore an increase of the premium on your car insurance. Buying off negative claim-free years can therefore be a good investment, but how does it work exactly?

Buy off claim-free years

Buying off claim-free years is in fact nothing more than taking care of the damage yourself. You have the possibility to pay back the damage yourself up to one year after the damage date. The maximum period for paying back the damage can differ per insurer. By paying for the damage yourself, you ensure that you do not lose any claim-free years.

As a result of a claim, you will fall back in claim-free years. This decline is the same for each insurer, namely 5 years. A novice driver has not yet built up any claim-free years. In case of a claim, 5 claim-free years are deducted from the total. If you have not built up 5 claim-free years yet, you will have negative claim-free years. This means you will get less no-claim discount and the premium of your car insurance will increase. It can be more profitable to pay a one-off lump sum than to pay a higher car premium for years. Therefore you should check whether the savings of buying off your policy exceed the investment.

 

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What is the advantage of buying off negative years?

Taking out a car insurance with negative claim-free years is usually not possible with a regular insurer. In that case you are dependent on the insurance company De Vereende. This is a company that is willing to insure special risks where regular companies give up. The premium is much higher than with the regular companies. De Vereende also sets some conditions for taking out insurance. You pay the premium at least 3 months in advance, also when paying monthly. The insurance only takes effect after receipt of the first premium and of a signed application form. In addition, in most cases De Vereende charges a deposit of an average of € 175, which must be paid in advance. If no damage has occurred at the end of the insurance policy, you will get this amount back.

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To buy or not to buy negative claim-free years?

Whether it is wise to buy negative claim-free years depends on the amount of the claim. It can be very expensive to pay for a damage out of your own pocket. Normally it can be interesting to pay for a damage up to an amount of € 1000,-. Of course, it also depends on a number of other factors, such as the car you drive and the number of claim-free years that remain when you do not pay for the damage yourself.

Alpina is an intermediary of De Vereende. This means that you can take out insurance with us from De Vereende.

Buying off negative claim-free years has the advantage that you do not have to take out insurance with De Vereende. You can then take out your insurance with the regular insurance companies, which means that you can save a lot of money. If buying off your claim-free years does not involve such high costs, you can quickly recoup the purchase price by saving hundreds of euros on the premium of your car insurance.

Do you have any questions regarding the surrender of claim-free years? Please contact us. We are happy to help you! We are available from Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 18:00 on telephone number 088-6883700.

Claim-free years transferable since 1-1-2022

Since 1 January 2022, claim-free years are transferable in certain situations. In case of death for example, they can be transferred to the surviving partner. Also for lease drivers and drivers who have lived abroad for years, it is now possible to transfer the claim-free years. This way, they do not lose their accumulated claim-free years. In our blogpost you can read more about this new regulation.

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