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My car insurance is coming up for renewal soon. Me and my girlfriend (EEA foreigner) are insured on our car.

I'm totally fine and have no problems, I've always had a standard UK license.

My girlfriend on the other hand is still on her European license. She is in the process of changing it to a UK one but we are warned with the current situation this might take a lot longer than normal.

Last year it was fine that we were insured with her on a foreign license however I've been told by my current insurer that this isn't acceptable going forward. Checking premiums on other insurers even if she did keep her foreign license (which legally she may not be able to- no straight answer on this. We've been told by the DVLA yes but their website implies no) it will also be a lot more expensive than if she had a UK one.

The question I have is an odd one.... Is it acceptable if I say she has a UK license for 0 years and 0 months when the insurance starts, even if it hasn't yet arrived when the insurance begins?- obviously she wouldn't drive whilst she's waiting for it to come, I'm reading things that the insurance would be given for driving when you have this license. But the insurance will be in place covering her driving ready for when she can.

I'm a bit worried about leaving the car uninsured for any length of time and it seems like it'll be jacking up the cost a lot to just do it for me and add her a few weeks later.

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  • Comment since I'm not familiar with UK car insurance customs. Here in Germany, a can be insured for all drivers, or specific named drivers. The latter will give you lower fees iff all drivers are considered low risk by the insurance company. And you can insure a car to be driven by someone else, taking your accident-free discount (the insurance basically considers you taking the risk of loosing your discount as you having sufficient trust in the driving abilities of your gf to make this proposal acceptable for them). Driver, insurance holder, registered holder and owner can all be different).
    – cbeleites unhappy with SX
    Sep 10, 2020 at 15:44
  • ... and AFAIK the actual driver is the only one who really needs to have a driver's license. Of course, the insurance company will not give a discount for x years of accident-free driving if the holder of the insurance doesn't have any such driving practice, and that obviously includes having a driver's license.
    – cbeleites unhappy with SX
    Sep 10, 2020 at 15:46
  • Might be relevant: US rules--my wife is listed as an insured on our car despite never having had a license and not knowing how to drive (her vision isn't up to it.) This exists because we own the car and the department of motor vehicles insists on the insurance covering all owners (never mind that they wouldn't actually cover her because she doesn't have a license.)
    – Loren Pechtel
    Oct 11, 2020 at 21:55
  • @LorenPechtel that's interesting. I've been part owner of multiple vehicles, but don't drive (for medical reasons). We had to explicitly tell insurance companies "RonJohn will never drive this car", and they put bold Excluded driver: RonJohn text on the insurance cards.
    – RonJohn
    Feb 7, 2021 at 16:26
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    @RonJohn Excluding her would cause big headaches with the DMV. The reason she's on it in the first place is the DMV refused to register a car with an uninsured owner.
    – Loren Pechtel
    Feb 7, 2021 at 21:17

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The insurance is a motor one. It's for the car not the driver.
The only thing is that there is no easily/readily avaiable history of the driver. So you could have insurance without even having a DL. The rate would of course be higher than for one having proof (DL) of driving (for example) 5 years without collision. With a fresh UK DL your girlfriend could have that high "no good history" rate. But if she already have a history of having insurance and no accidents then that should be the base to recalculate the price.
You could check for 30 days insurance or buy one in 12 rates and then terminate it when her UK license arrive and look for new one.

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