Are claim-free years per car or per person?
When you drive a car, you build up claim-free years. For every year that you have no damage, you gain one claim-free year. Your claim-free years influence the amount of the premium. The more claim-free years you have, the more premium discount you receive. So you pay less for your car insurance. We are often asked whether claim-free years are per car or per person. Claim-free years are personal. Only the policyholder, the person in whose name the car insurance is registered, builds up claim-free years.
How do claim-free years work exactly?
Claim-free years are years in which you do not claim any damage from your insurer. By driving without claims, you receive a discount on the insurance premium. The more claim-free years you have, the lower the premium. Claim-free years are kept up to date in Roy-Data. Roy Data is the central database of Stichting EPS (Efficient Processes Schadeverzekeraars). When cancelling a car insurance, the insurer registers your accumulated claim-free years. If you then take out a new car insurance, your new insurer will consult the Roy Data database to see how many claim-free years you have. This means that when you take out a new car insurance, you do not have to provide a paper statement anymore.
Claim-free years are personal
As we mentioned earlier, claim-free years are personal. If you are the policyholder, they are in your name. So you do not build up claim-free years if the car insurance is not in your name, even though you might drive the car as often as the policyholder. Does the policyholder have several vehicles in his name? Then the claim-free years are built up per vehicle. Even if you are the regular driver on the policy, you do not build up claim-free years yourself.
Transferring claim-free years
As of 1-1-2022 claim-free years can be transferred in some situations, for example in case of death. The claim-free years of the deceased can be transferred to the surviving partner. Sometimes this was already possible, but it depended on the insurance company. From 1 January onwards, the regulation applies to all insurers that are members of the Dutch Association of Insurers. The partner must live at the same address and have a driving licence.
The transfer of claim-free years will also be possible for lease car drivers. Lease drivers do not build up claim-free years themselves, because the car insurance is in the name of the lease company. However, they can already request a leasing statement. On this basis most car insurers do grant claim-free years, but some only give a premium discount. You lose this discount when you switch to another car insurer. From January onwards, the insurer will be able to include pure claim-free years in Roy Data by means of a leasing statement.
Related pages about claim-free years
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