So is the NCD with the car and not with the individual? Since i always thought that NCD stays with the person who earnt them.

From Google

If you are a named driver of a car, not the main driver, you usually won’t be able to build up a no-claims discount. However, if you then go on to take out your own policy with the same insurer, you may benefit from a discount.

Edited by malct on 23/11/2024 at 12:43

No, the NCD 'belongs' to the driver, but you can only apply one at once.

Correction - NCD belongs to the driver, not the car, but you can have more than one NCD - for instance if you have NCD on your one car and then buy another, a second NCD will start to acrue.

I recently went through this when I bought a small city car to reduce reliance on a big diesel guzzler which was/is on full NCD - built up 3 yesrs NCD on the small car before selling it as insurance and MoT was costing more than I was saving.

I think that in the UK motor insurance market we put far too much weight on 'No Claims Discount'. Sure the number of years claim free, or rather the years in which you were not, will affect the premium but, like 'cost to change' when trading on car for another it's easy to be led up the garden path.

When we got a second car 25+ years ago I bought an old Pug 205 and Mrs B ran the more recent BX estate which was the family car. I took my NCD with me but with a little shopping around Mrs B, who'd never had car insurance, was able to access various 'starter' etc discounts and paid little more for the BX than I had with 'full' NCD.

I suspect that when the OP moved insurance to his wife there was a similar arrangement.