Letting my mate with foreign licence drive my car in UK

[px1980]

As in the subject. Good friend of mine is visiting the UK, would like a go in my Cayman. He lives abroad and only has a foreign licence (EU).
(1) insurance - I guess I‘m looking at calling Admiral to add him onto the cover for a couple days?
(2) speed/traffic violations. Trickier? Say he‘s caught by a speed camera. Ticket and notice about points come to my address (sorry I‘ve never had one so I don‘t know the exact process but I assume there‘s a letter of that sort? With points and £ fine). Is it as easy as saying „I wasn’t driving, the guy who was doesn‘t live here, here‘s a copy of his foreign licence?

[4Q]

I tried without success to insure my daughter in law, who has a US licence, on my car when she visited. I couldn’t find anyone who who even consider it. I ended up hiring a car for her.

[douglasb]

px1980 said:

(2) speed/traffic violations. Trickier? Say he‘s caught by a speed camera. Ticket and notice about points come to my address (sorry I‘ve never had one so I don‘t know the exact process but I assume there‘s a letter of that sort? With points and £ fine). Is it as easy as saying „I wasn’t driving, the guy who was doesn‘t live here, here‘s a copy of his foreign licence?

Sort of. It would also be a good idea to have a copy of his insurance documents plus his flight tickets to prove that he was actually visiting you and that he was insured to drive your car. You can expect that the police will "dig a bit deeper" with a foreign driver and they will be looking at "permitting to drive without insurance" against you - which carries the same points/fine as actually driving without insurance.

[px1980]

douglasb said:

Sort of. It would also be a good idea to have a copy of his insurance documents plus his flight tickets to prove that he was actually visiting you and that he was insured to drive your car. You can expect that the police will "dig a bit deeper" with a foreign driver and they will be looking at "permitting to drive without insurance" against you - which carries the same points/fine as actually driving without insurance.

„Permitting to drive without insurance“ would only apply if I failed to add him to my insurance for those couple
of days (which as another poster explained above might be difficult, I now understand )?

[NNH]

4Q said:

I tried without success to insure my daughter in law, who has a US licence, on my car when she visited. I couldn’t find anyone who who even consider it. I ended up hiring a car for her.

I guess this was recent? I had no problem adding my American cousin to my Bell policy for my Cayman in 2017.

[Medic-one]

px1980 said:

As in the subject. Good friend of mine is visiting the UK, would like a go in my Cayman. He lives abroad and only has a foreign licence (EU).
(1) insurance - I guess I‘m looking at calling Admiral to add him onto the cover for a couple days?
(2) speed/traffic violations. Trickier? Say he‘s caught by a speed camera. Ticket and notice about points come to my address (sorry I‘ve never had one so I don‘t know the exact process but I assume there‘s a letter of that sort? With points and £ fine). Is it as easy as saying „I wasn’t driving, the guy who was doesn‘t live here, here‘s a copy of his foreign licence?

Before I moved to England in 2006 I stayed with friends and for a small fee (less then £ 20,) they were able to add me and my Dutch licence to their insurance for the day without any problems.

And for point 2, just in case, we had evidence that I was added to the insurance as the insurance company took all the details of my foreign licence and I'd taken a couple pictures of me with/out and about with the car, should any tickets come in the post afterwards.

[4Q]

NNH said:

I guess this was recent? I had no problem adding my American cousin to my Bell policy for my Cayman in 2017.

About 18 months ago. Maybe some companies are more flexible than others?

[Panamax]

NNH said:

I guess this was recent? I had no problem adding my American cousin to my Bell policy for my Cayman in 2017.

Did you tell them he was,
(a) Your cousin who holds a full driving licence, or
(b) Your cousin who holds an American licence but not a British one?

[NNH]

Panamax said:

NNH said:

I guess this was recent? I had no problem adding my American cousin to my Bell policy for my Cayman in 2017.

Did you tell them he was,
(a) Your cousin who holds a full driving licence, or
(b) Your cousin who holds an American licence but not a British one?

The latter. To add to the fun, I was calling from Germany so that my cousin could have a go at V-Max on the autobahn the next day. Bell had no problem at all with it.

[Panamax]

Interesting. And by the sound of things, unusual. Good result though.

[NNH]

Panamax said:

Interesting. And by the sound of things, unusual. Good result though.

She was pretty pleased to set a new personal speed record!

[Carfield]

My Father in law had no problem adding me (NL licence) to his insurance for two weeks. Axa, if memory serves. He had to phone and talk to them though, not possible online.

[C-J]

OP - 2 similar threads that I replied on this topic:
Long story short, Privilege (part of the Direct Line group I think) did allow - however I had to push and it depended who I spoke to on which day.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...



...below is my reply to a similar query back in Feb...

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Driving on UK insurance with a foreign driving licence...


Similar situation a few years ago with relatives visiting from o/seas.
We were able to add to my wife's policy (standard/mainstream, not classic) with Privilege (part of the Direct Line group I think).

We actually activated it twice, once in one policy year, and again approx 6 months later. It did seem to depend which operator I spoke to. Answers ranged from 'No' to 'Yes for 30 days/year' to 'Yes for 90 days/year'. Curiously the 'No' was when we called to activate it the 2nd time, only to be told that it wasn't possible on their policies - they were adamant until I pointed out that they had been happy the previous year.

The price turned out to be very reasonable - premium increase for 90 days was 21, plus 26 admin fee so 47 total...although on the 2nd occasion one operator was insistent that it could only be done for 30days per instance, and that I'd have to call back on day 30 and pay 14 + 26 each month - I just called back later and spoke to someone else who was happy to set-up again a full 90 days for 47.

The point of the above ramblings is that had I not successfully done it once, on the 2nd occasion I would have been convinced that the company could not support - when they could. So worth asking repeatedly.

From memory the relative probably got a 1 year international driving permit, and the excess went quite high (just for when they were driving) to 750. Therefore I/they bought a separate excess policy for 40. Probably overkill, but worth it for peace-of-mind (for me anyway!)

ps: Last tip, do ensure they are aware that the pretty yellow painted photo machines are in fact speed cameras - our guest won an invite to a speed awareness course, which then required another relatives to accompany to translate!