Claim-free years are the years in which you have not claimed any damage. For every year you do not claim any damage, you get one claim-free year. If you do claim damage, you lose your claim-free years. Anyone who claims a claim falls back five years. The number of claim-free years determines your place on the bonus-malus ladder and the premium you pay.
For those who have more than 15 claim-free years and make a claim, you fall back to 10 claim-free years after one claim is made.
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This is what Stichting Efficiënte Processen Schadeverzekeraars (SEPS for short) reports:
Using the lapse table, you can easily determine for yourself how many claim-free years you have left after a claimed loss that affects your claim-free years. In general, if you make a claimed claim, you will fall back five years.
If you have accumulated more than 15 claim-free years and claim damage with your insurer, you always fall back to 10 claim-free years. This means, for example, that if you have 20 claim-free years and have to claim damage with your insurer, you will fall back to 10 claim-free years. That may seem strict, but in practice, the discounts granted above 15 claim-free years are very low and hardly matter in terms of benefit.
If you have less than zero claim-free years, and you claim a claim with your insurer, you can never drop back further than minus five claim-free years. The minimum is minus five claim-free years.
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To find out how many claim-free years you have, contact your insurer or use your right of inspection.