Money: NCB, deductibles and depreciation

• How does No-Claim Bonus (NCB) work?NCB is a discount on the own-damage part of your premium, earned for every year you do not make a claim. The usual steps are 20% after 1 claim-free year, then 25%, 35%, 45% and a maximum of 50% after 5 years.
• What is NCB protection?NCB protection is an optional add-on. It lets you make a limited number of claims (often one per year) without losing your No-Claim Bonus.
• What is a deductible?The deductible (or “excess”) is the part of every own-damage claim that you always pay yourself.
• How does depreciation reduce my claim?For replaced parts, insurers usually pay less than the new-part price, depending on the material and the car’s age.
• Should I claim or pay myself?Claiming makes sense when the insurer’s payout is clearly larger than what claiming costs you. That cost is your deductible, the depreciation you pay, and the No-Claim Bonus discount you lose at renewal.
• How was my estimated payout calculated?ClearClaim starts from your total repair bill. It subtracts depreciation on the parts (based on material and car age, unless you have zero-dep), then your deductible, and caps the result at your IDV.
• Should I repair my car or sell it?Compare what you are left with in each case. Repair and keep: the car’s value once repaired, minus what the repair costs you (on the cheaper of claiming or paying yourself). Sell as it is: the offer for the damaged car.
• What should I enter as next year’s premium?Use the own-damage premium before NCB from your current policy schedule, or a recent renewal quote. That is the amount the NCB discount is taken from.

Policy basics

• What is IDV?IDV (Insured Declared Value) is the most your insurer will pay in a year. It is usually what you would get if the car were stolen or damaged beyond repair.
• What is zero depreciation cover?Zero-depreciation (also called “nil dep” or “bumper-to-bumper”) is an add-on. With it, the insurer pays for replaced parts without deducting depreciation.
• What is third-party vs own-damage cover?Third-party cover pays for injury or damage you cause to other people or their property. It is mandatory by law in India.

Making a claim

• What documents do I need for a claim?Insurers commonly ask for:
• How do I start a claim?1. Inform your insurer as soon as possible through their app, website or helpline. Most policies set a time limit.
• Cashless or reimbursement claim: what’s the difference?Cashless: you repair at one of the insurer’s network workshops, and the insurer pays the workshop directly. You pay only your share (deductible, depreciation, anything not covered).
• What does a surveyor do?A surveyor (loss assessor) is a licensed professional appointed by the insurer. They inspect the damage, decide which parts need repair or replacement, and assess the claim amount.
• What happens if my car is a total loss?If the car is stolen, or the repair cost is too high compared with its value, the insurer may treat it as a total loss and pay up to the IDV, minus your deductible.

Your data

• Who can see my vehicle data?Only you, unless you grant access. You can give a workshop, insurer or assessor time-limited access (30, 60 or 90 days) to a vehicle’s records and revoke it at any time from Data & Privacy.

About ClearClaim

• Is this the amount my insurer will pay?No. ClearClaim gives an estimate using standard rules so that you can decide what to do. It does not approve or reject claims and is not connected to any insurer.
• What does blockchain verification mean?When you save a claim record, ClearClaim creates a SHA-256 “fingerprint” of it and anchors that fingerprint on a Hyperledger Fabric ledger. Later, anyone you share the record with can check that it has not been changed since it was saved.
• Why is the ledger not connected?The integrity ledger runs on separate infrastructure. When it is not reachable from this deployment, ClearClaim still saves your record and marks its fingerprint as “pending”. You can use “Retry anchoring” later.
• What is ClearClaim and who is it for?ClearClaim tells you, before you call your insurer, whether a car insurance claim is worth it: what the insurer might pay, what you’d pay, and how your No-Claim Bonus would be affected.
• What is the repair-quote X-ray?The X-ray takes a workshop quote and splits every line into what the insurer would likely pay and what you would pay, based on the part’s material and your car’s age.
• How does fleet claim triage work?Fleet triage looks at all your incidents together and decides which to claim and which to pay directly, so the fleet’s total cost is lowest.
• What are “demo records”?Records labelled “Demo” are fictional sample vehicles and policies, there to let you explore ClearClaim. They are not real customers and not insurer data, even when they use real insurer names for realism.
• How does policy upload work?You can upload a text-based PDF of your policy schedule or a workshop estimate. ClearClaim reads fields such as IDV, NCB, deductible and repair totals using fixed rules (not AI), and shows them for you to check and correct before they are used.
• Does ClearClaim use AI to score my claim?Not for money. All payout figures come from fixed, published rules that you can inspect step by step.