Goonergirl

Hi everyone,

Arrived back in the UK this week and after the stress of an international move (including cat), am quite enjoying quarantine! Those of you who have returned to the UK, do you have any good ideas for car insurance? Everyone I've tried so far requires NoClaimsDiscount to be evidenced from UK insurer and won't accept insurer docs from abroad. We were insured by Nationwide (US) and Progressive in the USA, so big well known companies but not British, therefore not acceptable.

We managed to purchase a car remotely which is being delivered on Monday but can't find anyone to insure us.

Thanks in advance!

spouse of scouse

Welcome home! For car insurance, Aviva is often recommended here (including by me). They honoured our Australian no-claims discount. Best of luck and enjoy your rest, even if it is enforced

Goonergirl

Thank you Spouse, will give them a try. Yes, it's good to be home and knowing that I'm never going to move again!

lf1

NFU accepted our Canadian Driving Licenses, Canadian abstract (driving record) and Canadian claims history when we returned to UK from Canada. Also, with NFU you get to speak with a person so it was much easier to explain the situation. Good luck with everything. 😀

Goonergirl

Great, thank you for taking the time to reply and the advice. Will definitely follow up.

durham_lad

Aviva accepted our Geico no claims record when we arrived from the USA. Same goes for our son a year later in 2017.

Lion in Winter

Sorry, no useful info for your question, but may I ask who moved your cat? Also the cost of moving said cat, if you don't mind. I asked one company that quoted me 4kUSD for one cat, Chicago to Heathrow. Seems a bit steep.

Goonergirl

[QUOTE=Lion in Winter;12959912]Sorry, no useful info for your question, but may I ask who moved your cat? Also the cost of moving said cat, if you don't mind. I asked one company that quoted me 4kUSD for one cat, Chicago to Heathrow. Seems a bit steep.[/QUOTE

Hi LiW, We used Precious Pets Transport [email protected].
All in all a very good experience, Jill was our main contact, very knowledgeable and talked me through the whole process. Original quote back in October was around $3.5k, actual cost turned out to be $2.1k. I also chose to use a delivery service from Heathrow to deliver the cat, as the clearance process at Heathrow and the Animal Reception Centre can take 6-8 hours. Happy to supply more info if you need it!

Goonergirl

Thanks durhan lad, will be following up next week. I seem to remember that they were my last insurer in the UK before I left for the USA, so hopefully they might have retained a record of my last policy, I am running in to the same problems being back, that I had to overcome as a newbie in the USA. Credit checks turn out ok, but lack of a UK address for the past 3 years presents a problem to many., especially mobile phone companies.

OriginalSunshine

UK providers may accept Western NCDs but not Asian ones as we found out. We went with Marshmallow for insurance. We set up a direct debit monthly to help with building the credit history. Also joined the elcetoral roll, and set up a monthly contract with Three for mobile phones.

Lion in Winter

[QUOTE=Goonergirl;12959929]
That's very helpful, thank you. I'm trying to figure out all the tasks and all the costs of moving back in case I suddenly get the opportunity to do it. Did the 2.1 k include taking the animal through the airport process and managing all the paperwork, etc?

Edit to add, it looks as though they don't serve departures from Chicago, but it does give me an idea anyway.

Goonergirl

[QUOTE=Lion in Winter;12959999] Yes, there was no other charge except the delivery fee, which was very reasonable. The problem I encountered was that there are hardly any airlines taking animals at the moment, either down to COVID or Brexit. British Airways does, we flew with them and it was a good experience, (much to my surprise!).

Lion in Winter

Edited to fix quotes.

Good to know on BA.

uid73404

Ditto. NFU accepted insurance documents from USA for home and car insurance - we got full NCD. Our US insurance agent was more than happy to help. Of course NFU we found isnt the cheapest, but we stayed for a few years and now use the comparison sites.

uid73404

My expereinec from a non-COVID era - but still probably useful advice. In 2014 I had to transport a dog (GSD) from Detroit to London. I wanted a direct flight to mitigate risk. Detroit is a Delta hub and they had direct flights, but I found that when enquiring for flights for the dog that there were too many layers of middlemen and no exact price - not comforting given the manner in which my bank account was being depleted at the time! Also there was a caveat that if the daytime temperature was 85F+ they would not accept the animal (risk of dehyration etc. during transfer from dropoff to plane) - not good if you have sold your house and are ready to fly home too! and also Detroit regularly has such temperatures in the summer months. I then looked into JFK NY - the summer temps are cooler - and BA flys there many times a day. BA offered a fixed (much lower) price to LHR Animal Center (amazing) - but I still think my GSD should have been in Business sipping champagne for the journey for the price!! The JFK drop-off center was a cargo hanger which didn't give much confidence (but hey we wandered around NYC all day getting fantastic photos together) - but the dog got to blighty before I got back to Detroit for my final days before leaving too...