Direct Line Car Insurance

 La classe CU di Bonus/Malus ha beneficiato dell’agevolazione prevista dalla “legge Bersani” Not sure about this bit either! Thanks.

 Basically if you're a first timer insurer you're class 14.  If you're bringing your no claims bonus with you from UK (within 12 months) your UK insurer will give you a bit of paper which translated your no claims into the approriate Italian class.  You go down 1 class every year with no claims.  

So if I have been driving for 23 years and never ever claimed, but only changed insurers this last year, will they ask for proof and if they do, how can I prove it? Thanks for your advice.

Sarah and Mark..If you have been insured with another company here in Italy they would have given you a Bonus Malus number - High risk = 14 lowest risk = 1. When I first insured my car here I had a looooooong 'no accident claim' discount. They didn't (then in 2004) want to know, but agreed to start me on '11' - only £1,380!!!!I have since changed insurers twice and have just re-insured with Direct Line now for the third time - I'm now down to 'BM 4' and £540... That's for my old 1999 1.6s Vauxhall Vectra.If you want to talk about it - send me a PM or an e-mail and I'll call you or give you my number - I think you may still have my e-mail address.'C'  

 If you have had insurance in the UK until this year, your no claims will have carried over to your new insurer.  They should give you a certificate in Italian with your equvalent BM class which you present to your new Italian insurer.  As i remember max no claims is 60% in the UK - so you will probably only drop  or 6 classes at most.  The other possibility is to insure with Italsure or another UK company who insures Itlaian reg cars and is cheaper than Direct line!   

I sent Italian my UK renewal document (yes, they will want proof) with the no claims bonus in English on it and they started me correctly on 9 as the document showed maximum 5 years no claims bonus. This was the problem (I have actually never claimed except for windscreens in 23 years of driving) but in the UK they fix the maximum no clams to a certain number of years - in this case 5.If I was you, I would put in 9 for the bonus/malus and you'll only be 1 out (or even correct) if you can prove full UK no claims discount. Direct Line will adjust it when you send the proof of no claims. This is what they did with me. "La legge Bersani"  allows you to use the no claims bonus on a second car but you can only use this on one other vehicle hence having to tick the box if you are insuring a second car.