Hi there,

We are caught in a web of madness as we draw near to our return to the UK. I wondered if anyone here had similar experiences with getting car insurance when you have been abroad for a while.

Both DH and me had our cars and build up several years of NCB before we left the UK 2.5 years ago. Now that we are returning back to the UK after our long term assignment in the US, do we have to start building up our NCB from nought again? We have been living in downtown San Francisco and apart from the odd car hire every month or so, we have not really been driving the last 2.5 years. Do you have experience with specific insurers who will accept absence for several years?

Also, we just had a look at some quotes with no NCB and they seemed to have doubled!

One of the curses of being expat is the starting from scratch when arriving back in UK.

My recollect is that someone on this forum had sympathetic treatment from Tesco when they explained their previous expat status.

My DH was given starter credit of 3 years No-Claims-Bonus by broker Rias (for over 50's) with their parent company Ageas

That is exactly what I was afraid of.... My DH nearly fell off the chair when we found out how much our new car insurances will cost us with zero NCB, especially as he had more than 10 years NCB before we left.

Any point starting off with an old banger? I am feeling depressed just typing that. I was so close to getting a VW Golf and run it till it dies...

We bought a nearly new black car with 4 wheels, oh, it's a Polo it says on the back, ex-sales demo. Cost us £300 full comp this year, one driver, was about double that in our first year back (maybe because the car value was greater in that first year of the cars life) but we were not so switched on about UK insurance after 18 years away.

On reflection maybe we should have had an old banger to get some insurance history - but then it could well have cost us a lot more than the insurance fee to maintain/repair a banger. I would still opt for the more reliable car and pay the higher insurance.

Consider if you can contact your previous UK insurer, maybe they will remember you.

This has come up before and there is a company in the UK that will accept a letter from your car insurance company here for the NCB. I think it's this one:

http://www.directline.com/

but search the Over 50s MBTTUK forum for "car insurance" and you should find it. Good luck.

We were fine getting no claims after 12 years abroad, a very helpful thread a couple of years ago said to make sure you bring home any evidence of car insurance etc along with your no claims etc. We did this and Aviva were fine about us living and driving overseas and gave us no claims. Good luck

Unfortunately for us ,Direct Line said "NO" to a letter from our American insurance, very annoying.

But its always worth a go ...

I'm having an absolute nightmare getting insured. It turns out at the moment that Aviva are one of the only ones that will accept from the UAE.

My concern though is whether they will take my 4 years from abroad then at the end of the first year only give me 1 year and not allow me to transfer the 5 years.

This could be another nightmare scenario.

As I understand it you didn't have an insurance policy in the US so you are probably out of luck. Those insurers who will accept an overseas driving claims history require you to have had a policy while you were overseas. You are effectively in the same boat as someone who has not had car insurance in the UK for the same period.

I used to work in insurance before we left the UK.

The rules for us at that time were that there had to have been less than a 2 year break in cover (so not being insured for 2.5 years would mean that your NCD has unfortunately expired), and that the proof had to be in English.

Some insurers may go to 3 years, worth shopping around. I would also call them though rather than look online, because a lot of places have more leaway to refer unusual cases by phone, whereas you have to tick the correct box online. Also, I would consider contacting an insurance broker too. they're not necessarily cheaper for straightforward cases, but can have some arrangements with the insurance companies for slightly out of the norm scenarios. Some of the bigger brokers also have the authority to cover things that the company themselves would decline as standard.

Try Swintons, the AA, people like that.

HTH.