Car insurance question

livalicious

Hi there,

Ive bought a car today! Whoohoo!

Ok enough bragging, I would just like some advice from anyone who may know about this. But first a bit of background history pertinent to my question.

Im from South Africa, Ive lived in England for the last 8 years, got citizenship a few years ago. I have a South african driving license for the last 10 years, and recently passed my driving test and now hold a full english license (I had another thread explaining why i had to do this). Ive tried getting quotes, but they seem a little steep, I know it maybe to do with the car i bought (a V reg Golf GTI 1.8l). But I think might be too because I am classed as a new driver in England.

Now finally my question, before I start ringing a few insurers i thot id ask here first. Even though i only have my english license for the last 3 months, I have technically held a drivers license for 10 years. Could this make a difference, and would insurers accept that and quote me on that, rather than just on being classed a new driver?

Thanks for your help!

the_big_fact_hunt

try a local broker, they are usually more knowledgeable and do all the hard work for you

hewhoisnotintheknow

i think the main stream insurers will only be interested in your UK licence

alyssa_liss

i know when i was looking at cars a golf GTI was one of the dearist to insure for me , so might just have been that tbh

Wig

As most insurers now use internet and the question is
type of licence e.g. UK prov, UKfull, EEA, other international ... etc
period licence held ....

You are declaring the period you have held the uk licence, so to say 10 years in that box would be untrue and unlawful. The other way would be to ask on a telephone quote but the call centre staff are just going to have the same options available to them so it is unlikely to be any different. Another way might be to ask a highstreet insurance broker who might have a contact that they know who would take this information into account.

try the online insurance comparers like gocompare etc some of them have a lot more options for inputting extra information that other sites and insurers don't offer eg:

policy holder name
main driver name
registered keeper name

which can all be different names with some insurers, but most insurers will want those fields to be the same name.

livalicious

I phoned two insurers who gave the cheapest quotes so far on all the comparison sites I have tried. Im not sure if I can mention their names on here on not, (im sure the mods will delete if necessary) they were Admiral and Diamond.

Diamond actually said that they will take my SA license into consideration and this has reduced my quote amount by £200. Admiral on the other hand said, because I didnt actually exchange my license and retook the test, they cant take my 10 years driving into account.

456789

livalicious wrote: »

Diamond actually said that they will take my SA license into consideration and this has reduced my quote amount by £200.

Good result!

irisandalex

Perfect!

Don't forget that they probably record all calls with you, so as long as you've clearly told them about your licence situation the way the interpret it when inputting it in their computers is up to them!

livalicious

hi irisandalex, how very insightful of u! i have, funny enough, just spoken to them on the phone to accept the quote they gave me, and everything seemed fine. Just before I was due to pay I asked them to confirm that my license situation was ok (i wanted to be sure because I didnt want it biting me on the bumbum if I had to make a claim). And guess what, the guy I spoke to last time maybe misunderstood or I didnt make it clear enough that I still have both licenses and did not exchange it. The person I spoke to this time round said, that because I retook the test and didnt exchange the license, they would have to requote me and it would be quite a bit more.

As we speak, they are now listening to the recording of our previous conversation, just to make sure. My heart has already sunk in my shoes, I knew this quote was too good to be true, because its much cheaper than most I had so far. Im just waiting for them to ring me back to give me the bad news. Oh well, i tried!:o

livalicious

Whoohooo! They listened to the recording, and accept that they have made the error, so they are still going to give me the policy with the initial quote amount, on a 4 month UK driving license! :j

irisandalex

fantastic, what a result! Congratulations!