We have American sitters coming to look after our two dogs in August for a month. As we live in a rural area (Forest of Dean) and they won’t have their own transport, we were comfortable offering them the use of our small car to be able to take the dogs for walks, to the vets, to get to the supermarket etc.
We tried adding them to our current car insurance but our current insurance providers weren’t interested. Does anyone have experience of companies that offer such insurance for a reasonable price?
We’ve had one quote so far from Sterling - £350 with £950 excess - does that sound about right. We have no experience of this so any advice would be greatly appreciated
Post office insurance might be worth checking out as one option. Depending on the length of sit it also might be another option to look at a rental car and split costs with them instead? My brother and family are in Bream so I know your challenge on transport only too well! #insuranceideas
I’ve done 2 different housesits in St Briavels and my sons passed through there on Sunday while doing their Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award Expedition (in the heatwave!)
@Cuttlefish they have just pointed out to me that they were also in Bream!
How sweet and what a small world it is! Chances are that they all know each other as FOD is like one big village. Hope the boys passed DOE with flying colours . #dofe
I’ve just done real battle with my own insurers, Aviva, to get a reasonable pay out for my car which was written off by a third party (luckily it was parked and I wasn’t in it). So I wouldn’t recommend them, and bear in mind that they also underwrite policies offered by smaller insurance companies too.
But it may just be easier to offer to split costs on a rental car as @Cuttlefish suggests. That way, if anything goes wrong, it’s their name on the agreement and ultimately their responsibility.
As a sitter, I have used home owner’s vehicles on a couple of occasions, and to be honest, don’t want the weight of the responsibility again, especially in another country. The thought of going through all that hassle with not only the insurance company, but also the home owners, is too much. Keep things simple and hire a car if needs be.
@AliJules That’s very thoughtful of you to offer the use of your car. I’m Australian but have done many sits in the UK and never been offered the use of a car or contribution towards the rental fees. One advantage I have over your American sitters is that I am used to driving on the lefthand side whereas they are not. Also, you mention living in a rural area. Just how narrow are your roads/lanes as they can certainly be a challenge for folks not used to them? Much as it’s a kind gesture, I would think seriously about offering your car to them. Was the offer of a car included in your listing? If not, they have still applied regardless so how did they plan to get to your sit and get around whilst there?
Back to the subject of the post, if your small car is manual transmission, are your sitters comfortable driving a manual? Your area has some steep hills, so someone used to driving an automatic might find driving a manual more challenging #hillstarts
Hi - just restarting this discussion as we’re in a similar position of having had a very good US sitter applying for our currently advertised sit - but on past sits we’ve ended up spending hundreds of pounds on car insurance (with Sterling) for US sitters as our regular insurance company won’t touch them. @AliJules - did you find a cheaper alternative to Sterling?
We have a Jeep that our sitters use and have no problem adding sitters from UK, Australia and Canada as temporary named drivers on our Admiral policy. Cost depends on how long but for a recent 2 week sit it cost us £80.
How did you get around the fact that UK insurance requires drivers to have an UK address? The last time a homeowner added me to their insurance they listed me as temporary living at their address.
Do they? Might be just your insurer. Admiral ask for licence type and I selected international. They also ask for home address for temporary driver. I’ve had 3 drivers from Australia and one from Canada as well as multiple UK drivers added to my policy. It’s never been a problem.
I’m happy to pay for the insurance it as it gets the dog out on more interesting walks, especially if we are away for more than a week. We leave it with a full tank of fuel and ask sitters to purchase their own fuel for personal trips that don’t involve taking the dog. To date all of our sitters that have used the car have handed it back clean inside & out with a full tank of fuel. It’s a win-win.
If helpful, we’ve had use of pet parent vehicle on 20+ housesits in various countries. In our experience, UK is the only place where car insurance can be difficult. That said, we’ve successfully had use of pet parent vehicle on 6+ UK housesits.
If we deem use of vehicle to be important (e.g. rural location, expensive car rental) then we raise topic in our application and, if appropriate, obtain insurance consent prior to sit confirmation.
Our learning is that UK car insurance policies and UK insurers vary a great deal in their appetite to provide temporary coverage for UK non-residents. We have not discerned any pattern. So, as appropriate, we provide our relevant information to pet parent and ask them to speak with their insurer. It’s been no problem perhaps 75% of time.
We checked out a couple of UK temporary car insurance companies - but their quotes for non-resident drivers was prohibitive.
@GotYourBack Out of interest, how many of the 6+ UK sits where you had access to the car were post pandemic as that seems to be when it became harder for an international sitter to have use of a car in the UK? Is it because one of you is from the UK (I think)?
We have been full-time housesitters for 3-4 years. None before pandemic.
We originate from UK. British/Canadian citizens. Former UK residents. Former UK driver license. It’s possible that UK connection makes difference - or other factors such as age, profession (early retirees) or insurance company or vehicle. Darned if we know. But it seems, for us, often possible but we have learned - from experience - to clarify this possibility prior to confirming sit if topic would impact decision.
Hiya, no, Sterling were the cheapest at £347 for 4 weeks cover, fully comp, 1,000 mileage limit, £900 excess which we have agreed to split between us and the sitters, so we feel that is not too expensive.
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