Car Insurance Options for Home Exchanges and House Swaps

Need to find an car insurance policy to allow home exchangers from abroad to use your car?

We can help if you are looking to lend your car as well as your house to a home exchanger who is visiting from overseas.

However there are a number of factors you will need to take into consideration when deciding the best way to arrange this, as most UK car insurance policies will not allow you to add a non UK resident to your car insurance policy.

If your home swap is for a period of three months or more

The best way here is to ensure your standard car insurance policy will cover your home exchangers when you want to add them to your policy. As most policies will not this is best considered when your car insurance is up for renewal. Otherwise you may be faced with cancelling your existing policy (and paying any cancellation fees) prior to taking ourt a amore flexible policy.

If you would like arrange a quotation for this you can request a quote through us, and we will put you in touch with a car insurance broker who can offer such policies.

Request a Quote

Car Insurance if your house exchange is for less than three months - non UK driving licence

The easiest solution at the current time is car hire for those who do not hold a UK driving licence. Compare car hire quotes with MoneyMaxim to find the best deal for your UK car hire.

Do check back with us though as insurers used to cover some foreign licences on a short term basis and a few of these companies are considering re-entering this market. We will feature them as soon as they are available.

Car Insurance if your house exchange is less than three months -UK driving licence

There are short term insurance policies that cover periods of up to 28 days or more - and they can be renewed at the end of each twenty eight day period but they are more restrictive.

Firstly your home swapper must have a valid UK driving licence and may need a permanent residence in the UK.

The other important thing to note is that policies can only be bought using a debit or credit card owned by the person that the insurance is in the name of, it cannot be purchased by a third party. Some customers have reported that quotes or payment cannot be progressed from outside the UK so you may have to wait until your home swapper is in the UK before purchasing.

Of course you can run a dummy quote on their behalf if you have their details beforehand to get an idea of the cost , but you won't be able to take up a policy.

Safely Insured

Safely Insured – Provides competitive quotes for licences issued in the UK. Policies are available from one day up to 84 days. Cover only applies in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, and during sea journeys between these places, and cannot be used for trips to Europe.

safelyinsured.co.uk ask that visitors from abroad should use the address at which they are staying as their address.

Day Insure

Day Insure – Also cover UK licences. They will however cover a slightly shorter period up to 30 days. They tend to prefer vehicles less than ten years old, particularly when covering non UK residents.

Insurance quotations from Day Insure are provided online only.

If you are unable to find cover from either of these two insurers do try getting a car hire quotation instead.

House Exchanger wanting to buy their own car whilst here Moving to the UK permanently?

If your home swapper is making a more permanent move to the UK they may be wanting to purchase their own vehicle and get their own insurance - if that's the case have a look at our page covering Car Insurance for those moving to the UK.

Consider Car Hire Instead

Lastly do consider renting a car instead - it might be cheaper! Try our car hire comparison service for great rates, and don't forget - before you pay for expensive excess insurance at the Car Hire station we also offer that cheaper through our Car Hire Excess Insurance comparison service.

This content was last reviewed on 27/10/2021