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| Actually andy02, I'm not sure if the bit you said about having Swiss insurance while on UK plates is correct.
When I was in this situation, all the Swiss insurance companies I spoke to said it was perfectly fine here, so long as I was still on the 1 year grace period and would switch to Swiss plates before it expired. I even drove back to the UK on UK plates and Swiss insurance, and went though a police check point at Dover (they had a couple of police cars sat at the exit with the ANPR cameras pointed at the traffic) without any problems. | |
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You may have lucked out. If you have UK plates, you need a UK certificate of motor insurance to drive in the UK (roving cameras can pick you up) and to renew your tax disc. I have insurance with a USA insurer and pay in dollars, but they issue the certificate through their UK subsidiary.
The fact is there is now a central computer of MOT and insurance. I tried to renew my tax disc while my car was at the MOT shop and it didn't work, because they'd rejected the car; until they fixed it and entered it into the computer I couldn't renew the disc online.
Of course it's quite possible that your Swiss insurer, like my American one, puts its data on the DVLA's Motor Insurance Database. Stuff on that here, on the offiicial DVLA site:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring...icle/DG_069671
A green card or (as I have) insurance that covers any car I drive or anybody who drives my car anywhere in Europe is not enough: only the specific car mentioned on the Certificate is relevant. (On the other hand, for years our car was registered in my wife's name; recently our Council stopped accepting her Swiss driving licence for renewing our parking permit so I went through the Calvary of passing the UK driving test, and put the logbook in my name. Third time lucky, as they say, on the test.)