Car Insurance in the UK?

I am not a UK Resident , I am here in the UK from Australia for 5 months on Holidays . This is my forth trip here and after the first time when I hired a car for 7 weeks at a cost of 1400.00 pounds i found out that it would be much better to buy a car as I was going to be here for 5 months. A few days ago i took my rent-a-car back the i had for 7 days and cost me 150.00 pounds , I found a car to buy at a cost of 1200.00 pounds but first went looking to find someone to Insure the car . I spent overs 2 hrs on the phone and there was on one that would do it for me apart from one . I have 3rd party insurance only for this car and at a cost of 1230.00 pounds for 12 months . I am at a loss as to WHY i have to pay this amount and WHY no one will do it . MY Question is why is it that there no question asked when i hire a car for as lond as i like and am covered be insurance BUT if I try to buy a car and have it Insured that is a joke , Am I a diferent driver if it is my one car ?

Answers:
Im so sorry you have had this problem in the U.K. exactly the same thing happened to my cousin when he came to visit from Australia,i was willing to lend him my car for the time he was here but couldnt put him on my insurance,he ended up hiring a car for a few weeks (who insured him no problem) but it cost him a bomb,its ridiculous ,and as he says ,we do drive on the same side of the road,so no problem there.Also ,most cars in Oz are automatics ,so he had another problem finding an automatic to hire. So come on you insurance brokers,look at your policies and look after our visitors ,there are a lot of them coming here to visit theyre homeland and be fair to them !!
You have just discovered that britain is far from driver friendly. Insurance, petrol, car prices, big brother watching every turn. When you get back to Oz, revel in the open roads and relative freedom!
http://ipods.freepay.com/?r=31493552.
u should try a website called confused.com,this is a search engine for car insurance in uk.also here in the uk the smaller the engine the lesser the car insurance .good luck !! just buy a 500 pound banger ,look in a mag every thurs called autotrader .i hope u r not an illegal immigrant or a loony radical!!
Do you have any 'no claims bonus' back in Aussie, as I am sure if you could prove it, you could get a vastly reduced premium.
The second point: Do you have a friend here who will take ownership of the car whilst you are here, get insurance and have you as a named driver. That too will cut the cost. Apart from that, I am afraid that they have you by the short and curlys..
Even though you only want car insurance for 5 months, the insurance companies will only quote you for 12 months, then at the end of the 5 months you cancel the policy and claim the money back (you may be able to find an insurer that will accept monthly repayments). The problem with this is that you will never accrue any No Claims Benefit and therefore you will always be paying premium rate.

Car hire companies will have already paid the insurance on their cars on an any driver basis, this is part of what they charge you for.

If you are over here on a regular basis and in contact with the same people each time (family?), might it be possible to 'sell' the car to them on the basis that they will keep it insured with you as a named driver?
typical uk problem.
i tried to get a friend insurance and got same reply.
You could try to get vehicle registered in friends name (uk)and address in uk and put you on as additional driver.
Try
www.confused.com
Regards
Roger

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