Buying a car / car insurance

Hi,

I'm looking to buying a car (hopefully an automatic) / car insurance and want to know if it's difficult to do so for someone coming from outside the UK? Any tips?

I suppose that like the US, you must first sign up for car insurance before shopping for a car?  And is it common to shop car insurance and car online instead of walking into a local shop?  If so, are there any websites I should check out?

Many thanks in advance.

Actually, if you are buying a brand new car they often come with a week of car insurance so you have a bit of breathing room  to get that set up. That was the case with our Seat (Say-ot) Ibiztha in 2014.

Hi,

There's numerous insurance related threads on this section of the forum ! have a little search through !

I always mention (in the threads I do/have responded in) that the cost of insurance will vary according the the kind of car you want/buy. Automatic transmission cars are very commonplace so you'll have zero problems there as every segment of car models will have that option/choice.

Other significant factors to the cost of insurance will be if you have a full UK licence or not, the amount of UK driving experience you have, if you are on the electoral roll or not. Then after those, the usual aspects of your address/postcode for where you live and the car is kept, make/model/value etc.

Over the last few months, the insurance industry has been raising premiums due to economic factors, the cost of claims and payouts rising generally etc and it's likely to continue in an upward trend for the near/mid term future.

There are all the usual car insurance online specialists and aggregrators, so do check those. I'd suggest combining that search with specialist insurers and brokers who will have special schemes in place for those new to the UK etc. All of this is tedious and can be time consuming so I also suggest calling up some of the specialist insurers and talk to them about your scenario before they go through all the 5-10 minutues of gathering your details for a quote. Insurance companies will search your Credit History Report when providing a quotation and if you have too many searches, it negatively impacts your score = I think it's relatively minimal though as the credit reference agencies know many people ring around when it's policy renewal time etc.

As for buying a car, that's the easy bit really! lots of choice, new or used and plenty of good garages and bad ones out there. It really does pay to do your homework properly when buying a used car in this regard.

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Often you can't drive the car home the same day you buy.  It's weird.

But it gives you time to set up insurance before you pick it up.

Don't forget that you will also need to pay road tax before you can drive anywhere.  If you are buying from a dealer, they will most likely take care of this.  If not, you will have to pay attention to this. 

Also, you will most likely want roadside breakdown coverage.  Be careful that many of the cheap deals don't cover when your car has a problem outside your house (of course this is where it's most likely to happen).  You have to pay more for "home start" service.  Welcome to rip off Britain!

A very handy website to know is money supermarket.com, they run a decent price comparison service for many things.

You can't get insurance before you know the make and model of the car so there could be a day or so in between buying the car and taking it home.

Three years ago we bought a used Toyota which came with 2 weeks insurance through Toyota. If it had been taxed and MOT'd we would have been able to drive it home that day, as it was we came back the next day with a bank check.

When bought a 2nd hand car earlier this year and after paying for it we picked it up 2 days later after it had been serviced and "detailed".  Those 2 days were enough time to find car insurance. (we used https://www.comparethemeerkat.com/attention/?SRC=CU11&gclid=Cj0KEQjwvve_BRDmg9Kt9ufO15EBEiQAKoc6qkesJ7XDrDN52SxAVV7wV-t3w6NkHvNri-hj27Gnkx4aAjeL8P8HAQ).

Don't forget that you will also need to pay road tax before you can drive anywhere.  If you are buying from a dealer, they will most likely take care of this.  If not, you will have to pay attention to this. 

Can they still do this? We could buy a car with some of the Road Tax still on it, but now we are not allowed to transfer this. Only full months can be reclaimed and the government now end up with Car Tax twice for that vehicle for the same month

Also, you will most likely want roadside breakdown coverage.  Be careful that many of the cheap deals don't cover when your car has a problem outside your house (of course this is where it's most likely to happen).  You have to pay more for "home start" service.  Welcome to rip off Britain!

I paid £30 for the year for all that and relay too. You have to learn how to play the system. Or live on a hill

That's a good point about the road tax , I'm not exactly sure how the dealers take care of it since the rules changed , but they must do it somehow.  You've got to drive that car home eventually.

I've said it on other threads, but the only UK insurance company I found that was willing to take into account our US driving history and no-claims discount was Aviva. And I did A LOT of searching. I know others have had different experiences though.

I bought a cheap automatic part-ex and had no idea I needed to pay the road tax ahead of time. I had been driving for a week or so before I realized I needed to pay it - oops!

That's a good point about the road tax , I'm not exactly sure how the dealers take care of it since the rules changed , but they must do it somehow.  You've got to drive that car home eventually.

When we bought our 2nd hand car in May the dealer took care of it and we paid for a year's road tax as part of the final sum paid.

Possibly meet with an insurance person in person. I have my driving test in December and am looking to buy a car. 

I did this a few weeks ago, and he ran through multiple cars and estimate costs of insurance, so it gave me a better idea of what kind of car to look for. They said fiestas are great for 'new drivers'. We have a Toyota aurus (similar to corolla [spelling?]) and insurance cost was nearly double what it would be if I drove a fiesta or a little Citroen.


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