"And even if you protect the NCB, your insurance premium will go up anyway."
That may not necessarily be the case in all situations. A couple of years ago, I managed to take off the passenger door mirror and put in the dent in the wing of my wife's Focus when a lorry reversed out of a side road. The blame argument could have gone either way - but life's too short, and we just claimed on my wife's insurance (CIS). We had NCB protection; the NCB was not affected, and the premiums did not appear to go up as a result of the accident.
>> And even if you protect the NCB, your insurance premium will go up anyway.
Granted that will be the case if any claims and blaims haven't been sorted out at the time of any insurance renewal.
When the idiot who reversed into me back in 2011, while it was being argued who was at fault (he said I drove into the back of him) my insurance went up at renewal time, but once everything had been proved otherwise I got a refund back from my insurer and the end renewal price was actually lower than their original quote.
Like all expenditure on insurance it depends on how much you would be hurt financially by the loss of the thing you are insuring.
If loss of your NCD would be a major problem then protect it. If you can afford to live with the loss then don't bother.
Insurance companies are not charities and they are always looking for ways to sell you additional benefits which are of course very profitable as far as they are concerned.
Premiums can still go up, even with protected NCD. The base premium can still be increased.
You need to have the following information;
How much does it cost to protect the NCD?
How much will the unprotected premium go up in the event of a claim?
How much will the protected premium go up in the event of a claim?
You presumably have a quote from a company with and without protected NCD? This at least tells you how much protection is costing you.
Now ring them up again and ask for another quote, use a different name and alter your details to include a fault claim in the last 6 months. This will tell you roughly how much the premium will go up in the event of a claim.
Ask the insurance company on the original quote to confirm that your premium will not be increased in any way as a result of a claim, whatever the cost of that claim, if you have protected NCD. It won't be a commitment, but it will give you a level of comfort, or not.
You should now have all the figures you need. Don't forget to work it out over 2 years, since that is how long your bonus is typically lowered for.
Thus NCB protection will cost you £60 and losing your NCD will cost you £250, or thereabouts.
Although £100 - £150 needs checking just to be sure;
£330 net of 60% NCD = £825 gross = £495 net of 40% NCD = £165 difference (although that is still about £250 over 2 years given a likely £85 increase in the second year.).
Only you can judge whether the certainty of losing £60 over 2 years is preferable to the possibility of losing £250 in the same period.