Registering and Insuring a Motorhome in the UK
Registering the Hymer 544 in the UK
To register a vehicle in the UK the owner must have a physical UK address – a post office box is not acceptable.
The address is used to send renewal notices and any speeding fines etc thank may have occurred around Europe.
A V5 registration document needs to be signed and then sent to Swansea to have the ownership changed to the purchaser.
The vehicle must have an insurance policy in place before it can be registered and taxed and an annual MOT (safety inspection and certification) must be organised.
There was no fee for the registration transfer and the road tax was 175 GBP – the Hymer GVM is 3700kg.
Mike Steers from UKmotorhomefinder looked after everything to do with registration for us prior to our arrival.
Insuring the Hymer 544 in the UK
What a nightmare
Australians are treated like 3rd class citizens in the UK when it comes to insuring motorhomes.
As soon as an Aussie accent is detected most companies either hang up the phone or inform you that they don’t insure Australians and refer you to Down Under Insurance.
Down Under Insurance is really the insurer of last resort.
I had 50 years of claim free motoring in Australia and zero demerits on my licence but they won’t take that in to consideration.
Michael Steers from UKmotorhomefinder tried about 6 UK insurers for me and I tried about 6 but all refused and I ended up with Down Under Insurance.
The policy states that it is not renewable and that they wont send a reminder when the policy is due to expire.
The “Green Card” (a statement of which countries the coverage applies to) surprisingly includes Morocco and Turkey.
Countries excluded include Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Belarus, Israel, Iran, Moldova, Macedonia, Montenegro, Russia, Tunisia and Ukraine – coverage for those countries will need to be obtained outside of the DUI coverage.
The policy annual fee was outrageous and included an “admin fee” of 40 GBP and a credit card fee of 27 GBP.
The good things in the policy are that there is no limit on the number of miles in or out of the UK, no time limit in or out of the UK and an excess of only 200 GBP.
The company is registered in Gibraltar and I hope we don’t have to try to make a claim.
Even though the policy states that it is not renewable and that they won’t send a reminder when the policy is due to expire when we contacted them just prior to expiry of the original policy they were happy to provide a quote for the second 12 months which we proceeded with (at an exorbitant fee).