How to get auto insurance for foreign spouse?

[Angela & Paul 12]

Latest update on this....

My broker was not very informed and not very forthcoming, she finally told me that with Progressive, coverage for Angela would run $456 for 6 months. Liability only would be $275.

That's another thing she was not not very forthcoming about, i.e. that by removing Comprehensive and Collision, it would be much cheaper (my van is 10 year old).

And more importantly, she did not mention the $50 cancellation fee if I wanted to cancel before the end of the 6-month period.

So I went with Geico at $246, no cancelation fees. Geico covers the vehicle and both of us. She can get a good driver discount after 3 years of US license. Pretty commom in the industry as far as I can tell.

I kept my other car with Mercury at $252, all discounts applied, including married rate. I lost the multi-car discount. Angela is not allowed to drive it.

When she finally gets her driver's license - once she get the EAD - I'll figure out what to do.

In summary, Progressive and Geico will accept foreign licenses. Geico is cheaper, they do not work through brokers though (and that's one reason Geico told me they are cheaper, no paying the middleman!)

[Nik+Heather 121]

I use State Farm in Arizona.

To get Nik on my insurance, he will need: Valid UK driver's license, and the UK equivalent of a motor vehicle record*

I am name insured, which I take to mean that the insurance covers any car that _I_ drive regardless of ownership - like rental vehicles, as well as my car is insured -- for one time sorts of things like allowing my old room mates to borrow my car when they are in town**.

*We haven't figured this second part out for sure yet, but narrowed it down to a couple of possibilities - He has a paper counterpart to his license where driving offenses are recorded, and there is also an insurance database, from which, apparently a report can be printed out.

**In the 3 years since they moved away, 2 of 3 times they have been back have coincided with MY being out of town. ARGH. At least the car was available. LOL!

[Texanadian 10]

Interesting thread. There seems to be some confusion over who is covered and who isn't. The ol' we insure the car debate vs we insure "these drivers" who are driving this car.

In Texas, I was allowed to use my foreign license for 1 year. Handy. But how about insurance? Well, here we have it such as that anybody who has a driver's license (from anywhere) can drive your vehicle provided they're not a member of your household. That means when I used to fly down to visit my (then girlfriend, now wife) before I moved here, I could drive her vehicle no problem....After I moved here, technically I was not allowed to drive her car since I was now a member of her household. If my mother flys down to visit me, she can drive my car no problem.

I'm with Geico and they have a few different driver classifications: Active, At School, Military, Excluded, Non Driver, Other Insurance.

Active: Can drive on your plan.

At School: More than 100 miles away. Drives your car once a month.

Military: Deployed

Excluded: Can't drive on your plan.

Non Driver: Doesn't have a license. Can't drive your car.

Other Insurance: Somebody other than your spouse who has insurance from somewhere else. Doesn't drive your car.

(All of the active/at school etc stuff is explained on Geico's online user profile that you can set up for yourself. Shows your cars, your drivers, your costs and discounts, when your policy ends, your next bill etc)

• My wife and I are both active.
• Excluded drivers could be for example "her son on my car." He could drive her car, but not mine.
• Non Driver would be for some of you who have spouses from foreign countries who can't drive in your US state but would allow you a married discount.
• I'm not sure why the Other Insurance category exists. I could see this being a roommate of yours.

As far as agents go, I've never understood why people in the US have agents. When I lived in British Columbia in Canada, we had 1 insurance company. You simply stopped by any office that sold insurance and bought some. No different than going to Starbucks on this street or Starbucks on that street. There was no agent other than the person at the desk who took your money and gave you the paperwork and license plate sticker.

As for being hit by a driver who is excluded on the other person's car? You're poop out of luck. Since they're not legally allowed to drive that person's car, it means you'll either have to file a claim on your underinsurance or if you don't have underinsurance, you eat the cost of the repair yourself. It's essentially the same as being hit by a driver who has no insurance whatsoever. There's been a lot of news reports about the abundance of uninsured people driving on the roads.

Guy's car gets hit by a teenager driving his dad's pickup. Dad has son excluded from his insurance policy. Guy doesn't have underinsurance on his car because he's broke and the car isn't worth much. Now he has no car and nothing to pay for the damage and loss of it.

Geico (at least in Texas) had no problem with me buying insurance and being added to my wife's policy when I still had a foreign license. Later on when I got my US license, I simply phoned them up and gave them the new TX license numbers and that was it.

[TiffandDai 0]

Interesting thread. There seems to be some confusion over who is covered and who isn't. The ol' we insure the car debate vs we insure "these drivers" who are driving this car.

In Texas, I was allowed to use my foreign license for 1 year. Handy. But how about insurance? Well, here we have it such as that anybody who has a driver's license (from anywhere) can drive your vehicle provided they're not a member of your household. That means when I used to fly down to visit my (then girlfriend, now wife) before I moved here, I could drive her vehicle no problem....After I moved here, technically I was not allowed to drive her car since I was now a member of her household. If my mother flys down to visit me, she can drive my car no problem.

I'm with Geico and they have a few different driver classifications: Active, At School, Military, Excluded, Non Driver, Other Insurance.

Active: Can drive on your plan.

At School: More than 100 miles away. Drives your car once a month.

Military: Deployed

Excluded: Can't drive on your plan.

Non Driver: Doesn't have a license. Can't drive your car.

Other Insurance: Somebody other than your spouse who has insurance from somewhere else. Doesn't drive your car.

(All of the active/at school etc stuff is explained on Geico's online user profile that you can set up for yourself. Shows your cars, your drivers, your costs and discounts, when your policy ends, your next bill etc)

• My wife and I are both active.
• Excluded drivers could be for example "her son on my car." He could drive her car, but not mine.
• Non Driver would be for some of you who have spouses from foreign countries who can't drive in your US state but would allow you a married discount.
• I'm not sure why the Other Insurance category exists. I could see this being a roommate of yours.

As far as agents go, I've never understood why people in the US have agents. When I lived in British Columbia in Canada, we had 1 insurance company. You simply stopped by any office that sold insurance and bought some. No different than going to Starbucks on this street or Starbucks on that street. There was no agent other than the person at the desk who took your money and gave you the paperwork and license plate sticker.

As for being hit by a driver who is excluded on the other person's car? You're poop out of luck. Since they're not legally allowed to drive that person's car, it means you'll either have to file a claim on your underinsurance or if you don't have underinsurance, you eat the cost of the repair yourself. It's essentially the same as being hit by a driver who has no insurance whatsoever. There's been a lot of news reports about the abundance of uninsured people driving on the roads.

Guy's car gets hit by a teenager driving his dad's pickup. Dad has son excluded from his insurance policy. Guy doesn't have underinsurance on his car because he's broke and the car isn't worth much. Now he has no car and nothing to pay for the damage and loss of it.

Geico (at least in Texas) had no problem with me buying insurance and being added to my wife's policy when I still had a foreign license. Later on when I got my US license, I simply phoned them up and gave them the new TX license numbers and that was it.

All of the information above is correct except the underinsurance portion, it only pays if the driver of the car isn't at fault for the accident.

[Creel 0]

I live in California and State Farm would not add my husband to the car because he did not have a CA license. They said we could just say he was visiting if anything happened, because they will cover a legally licensed driver from any country if they are just visiting you, but not to add them full time on the policy.

We did that until we were married and then I figured "he's just visiting" wouldn't work so we switched to Geico. They seemed ok at first, but when he finally got his CA license I called to give them the number and they said, "oh, he is a new driver in the States, you have to pay this extra fee. (I can't remember any dollar amounts because it has been a while). We then switched to Progressive because they didn't charge anything extra for the new American License.

We are now actually back to State Farm, as we switched back when we bought our house to get the discount.

The bigger issue, is that Galifornia requires that you get a CA License within 10 days of this becoming your permanent residence! My husband got a ticket for having no license even though he had his Albanian and International License with him. He even called me on the cell and let me argue with the cop. He still wrote the ticket, but was nice enough not to tow the car. My husband had to walk home and I had to go get the car later.

I took it to court and the cop didn't show up so it was dropped, but it made us nervous for a few months until his English was good enough to pass the DMV test. If you read all the details on the DMV site I think he was fine to drive, but the police don't actually know the law well enough so they just give the tickets.

[Angela & Paul 12]

The bigger issue, is that Galifornia requires that you get a CA License within 10 days of this becoming your permanent residence! My husband got a ticket for having no license even though he had his Albanian and International License with him. He even called me on the cell and let me argue with the cop. He still wrote the ticket, but was nice enough not to tow the car. My husband had to walk home and I had to go get the car later.

I took it to court and the cop didn't show up so it was dropped, but it made us nervous for a few months until his English was good enough to pass the DMV test. If you read all the details on the DMV site I think he was fine to drive, but the police don't actually know the law well enough so they just give the tickets.

Interesting story.

I pointed out the same contradiction at the DMV office and they gave an evasive answer, just that they cannot give licenses to people who do not have a Soc. Sec. card with no restrictions, and if you have the "not valid for work without DHS authorization", they want to see the EAD.

So for all intended purposes, even married, the foreign spouse is considered an illegal immigrant for the DMV.

I might go back to the DMV and ask them to write me a statement that my wife is not a permanent resident and thus cannot get her driver's license, in case she meets one of these cops, which I can understand might ne aware of the subtleties.

[JeremyR 8]

To get Nik on my insurance, he will need: Valid UK driver's license, and the UK equivalent of a motor vehicle record*

*We haven't figured this second part out for sure yet, but narrowed it down to a couple of possibilities - He has a paper counterpart to his license where driving offenses are recorded, and there is also an insurance database, from which, apparently a report can be printed out.

I'm not sure if the counterpart will do the job...

If all else fails, he should probably make a request to the DVLA under the Data Protection Act that they release a copy of all the information they have on him. That should turn up the required records (and probably a load of other stuff too). See here.

Back to the thread, something that occurred to me while I was reading through this thread was that while splitting the coverage between two insurance policies may save a few bucks, it may look slightly odd if/when you have to attend an AOS interview. Perhaps it's worth spending the extra few dollars just to have both of your names on the same insurance card?

Also, thumbs up for Geico from us as well. I was listed as a non-driver for a few months after we married with no impact on my wife's premium and when I got my LP, it cost a few bucks per month to change my status to 'active'. They asked us to notify them when I got a full license though, so I guess we'll see what they'll do to the premium then???

[Angela & Paul 12]

Back to the thread, something that occurred to me while I was reading through this thread was that while splitting the coverage between two insurance policies may save a few bucks, it may look slightly odd if/when you have to attend an AOS interview. Perhaps it's worth spending the extra few dollars just to have both of your names on the same insurance card?

It's not possible to split insurance policy on one car. One car, one insurance policy. And as long as the insurance company accepts foreign licenses, then it's always cheaper to have both spouses under that insurance becuase the US spouse will drive the price down.

What I ended up doing was getting Geico on one car, with BOTH our names on the insurance, and keeping Mercury - which does not accept foreign licenses - on my other car, with me (US spouse) as the sole driver.

I can show the GEICO policy with both our names for the AOS interview.

And as far as I know, having two separate insurance policies will always be more expensive than having one policy on both cars. In my case, Geico + Mercury is more expensive than Mercury alone. It's just that Mercury only takes US licenses.

Our Geico insurance is temporary, and there's a chance we'll have both our cars under Mercury at time of interview since getting the coverage is dependent on getting the CA drivers' license which itself is dependent on getting the EAD, which occurs before the interview (about 90 days before).

[Damian P 92]

Just been added to the wife's policy. It cost us a whole $3 for the year!!!

[msnoob 3]

I contacted Geico to get a quote to add my husband to my policy. They automatically added him and sent me this note in an email:

"We have received your request for a quote to add your spouse to your policy. Your policy contract automatically extends coverage to all household residents and resident relatives, to include spouses and children so we have added [spouseName] to your auto policy. Since you are adding your husband to your policy, he will appear on all of your paperwork and have the same rights as you do to the policy."

There was no increase in the existing policy amount. Since my policy is for six months at a time, I'm not sure if they will increase it when it's time to renew.

[Angela & Paul 12]

I contacted Geico to get a quote to add my husband to my policy. They automatically added him and sent me this note in an email:

"We have received your request for a quote to add your spouse to your policy. Your policy contract automatically extends coverage to all household residents and resident relatives, to include spouses and children so we have added [spouseName] to your auto policy. Since you are adding your husband to your policy, he will appear on all of your paperwork and have the same rights as you do to the policy."

There was no increase in the existing policy amount. Since my policy is for six months at a time, I'm not sure if they will increase it when it's time to renew.

Which State are you in?

I think rules vary greatly from State to State.

And then each insurance company sets their own rules.

But one has to commend Geico for making it easy for us, even in CA.

[msnoob 3]

I contacted Geico to get a quote to add my husband to my policy. They automatically added him and sent me this note in an email:

"We have received your request for a quote to add your spouse to your policy. Your policy contract automatically extends coverage to all household residents and resident relatives, to include spouses and children so we have added [spouseName] to your auto policy. Since you are adding your husband to your policy, he will appear on all of your paperwork and have the same rights as you do to the policy."

There was no increase in the existing policy amount. Since my policy is for six months at a time, I'm not sure if they will increase it when it's time to renew.

Which State are you in?

I think rules vary greatly from State to State.

And then each insurance company sets their own rules.

But one has to commend Geico for making it easy for us, even in CA.

I'm located in Maryland and I agree that the rules seem to vary by state. I was very pleased because I'd only requested a quote, but I printed out the new insurance cards today with both of our names on them. Again, I'm not certain if a price increase will come later... but for now, he has auto insurance... one less hurdle

[Sudan Man 15]

Just to add here I would like to say in VA DL is granted "afterpassing the tests" even if you dont have an EAD.

As an applicant you are required to provide the following documents:

1) Prove of lawful presence in the U.S. (visa,I 797,I 94,EAD, OR SSN CARD

2) Prove of VA address.

3) Valid DL from your country + its translation if required.

4) 2 forms of official photo ID including your passport.

 

Once you receive the dl  you will easily be able to add your spouse to your insurance policy but expect to have a higher rate due to the lack of U.S. driving history.

 

 

.

 

 

 

[TBoneTX 43,604]

Thread from 2009 is now closed to further comment.