switching insurance from overseas to UK

[kb165]

Hi everyone. I've picked up max no-claims bonus with my overseas insurance company from when I was living overseas but I have never been insured in the UK even though I live here. I now want to insure a car in the UK. I still have a car insured in France but the UK insurance companies I've spoken with tell me I cannot carry over the no claims from France (and hence use it on two vehicles, with two companies) unless I stop the insurance on my car over there. Seems silly to me.

Does anyone have any bright ideas? I'm aware I need to have the no-claims document from the French company translated officially but this is even before all of that.

Many thanks and have a great festive season.

KB

[Alan_Green]

• But you can never spread one NCB across two policies simutaneously.  Even if both policies are in the UK.  (Ahem, OK, it may be possible to do it accidentally if you get in a muddle).

• I have faced the "having a foreign N.C.B. recognised" problem before and have found that the UK insurer may or may not accept the foreign NCB. Helps if your evidence bundle is of decent quality. But that was for non-E.C. countries.  Yours is another E.C. country so I would have thought not recognising the NCB would be anti-european.

The last time I faced this I had reached middle-age and it did not seem to matter whether I had 7 years NCB or zero NCB with no claims, the quotes were about the same, so I didn't bother. How old are you?

[Pillock]

That sounds fairly standard, you can't have two cars using the same NCB. Never been able to do that with two UK cars.

[Junkman]

I would not trade my foreign policy for a UK one if I had the chance.

UK car insurance? Someone must have left the asylum door open.

What an utter pile of wank.

[dave21478]

I tried it the other way, from UK to France and just gave up in the end. Although technically possible, every insurer I asked about it made it such a hassle that I just couldnt be bothered and the amount it would cost me in official translations and a character reference written by the pope himself and all the other shite they demanded meant I was just as well forgetting it and starting again at zero, which wasnt as expensive as I had feared.

 

French insurance companies make my cunt itch. And I dont even have a cunt.

 

For example, today I am trying to contact my local (20 miles away) branch to see if they are open. Obviously the number they have listed on their main website and in the phone book is not the right number. Twice now I have called it and got through to some confused sounding farmers wife. So now I have to make a 40 mile round trip to pay them a cheque (a fucking cheque! what is this, 1972? Oh wait, its France. It actually IS 1972 here) with at best a one in ten chance they will be open when I get there.

[barefoot]

Does your existing insurance company have a British arm?

ie - is it Santander or something?