Richard8655

Would anyone know if coming from another left-hand side drive country (i.e., Australia, New Zealand) makes it easier to exchange licenses vs most of the rest of the world?

MidAtlantic

It is not a question of easier or harder. Either you can exchange a license or you cannot. The link I gave in #13 above takes you through a check list.

Richard8655

I missed that link, thanks. But I do see most of the designated countries are left side drive, so there does seem to be preference if from one of them.

spouse of scouse

Makes sense though, it's not easy going from right hand drive to left and that's going to impact on your driving skills.

Richard8655

Exactly. That’s what I was thinking they had in mind.

capo1211

When I returned my policy was high but I got a substantial refund after gaining employment. Funnily enough when I added my foreign spouse to my policy recently I also got a refund, I had expected it to go up. What will hit you hardest is residency and NCB if you didn't have a policy while abroad.

spouse of scouse

Some UK insurers will accept your NCB from another country, but by no means all. Our insurer did let us use our NCB but as well as our insurance renewal document, which clearly showed the number of NCB years, we had to write to our Australian insurer for a letter specifically stating that we'd cancelled that policy. No idea why that was an issue, but we did it because a 60% NCB was well worth it!

durham_lad

That was the same with our son last year, he had to provide both the NCB letter from his US insurer plus a copy of his insurance certificate which actually looked as if it was current as the expiry date on it had not passed. I took it simply to be a cross reference between the NCB letter, which had the policy number as a reference, and the actual certificate he had been using.

Bud the Wiser

I have been insured through my own company here in the US for 23 years. No claims. Does anyone know if US company insurance records carry forward and count towards new private insurance in the UK?

Oh and is there VAT on used car vehicles.