Import car insurance is best bought from the best auto insurance companies that specialize in such cars. General insurance companies will not be able to help much on your import car insurance needs, because it is a very small niche and the costs of providing such services is not cheap.

Import car insurance policies must handle a couple more legal hurdles compared to domestic cars. There are more issues to be dealt with, such as import taxes, custom held up, compliance with local emissions and safety standards, pest control during shipment and so on which increases the cost of import car insurance.

Before shopping for an import car insurance plan that is priced competitively and fair, prepare all the necessary ownership documents and car specification sheets from the manufacturer. Before any auto insurance companies can generate a quote for you, they need all these information so be prepare to provide answers to a lot of questions they may ask.

Usually, there is little need for you to compare car insurance quotes from more than three different insurers. Due to fierce competition and easy availability of rates information from rivals, you are not likely to get significantly cheaper discounts by comparing a lot of import car insurance quotation. It is more to ensure you do not get cheated by some unscrupulous brokers that try to ask for very high charges and to make sure you get the necessary cover features needed.

It is preferable to deal with the best auto insurance companies that are experienced in dealing with insuring cars manufactured overseas. There can be many hiccups involved with importing your car and their experience will help to prevent such unpleasantness from happening. You can try asking other owners on import car forums to see where they bought their import car insurance from. You can also read feedback and comments on how they manage to bring in their favorite cars in one piece from abroad.

For cheap car insurances, estimate the mileage you intend for your imported car and look for low cost limited mileage policies. Always keep your imported car safely locked in a garage when not driving. If you are able to prename the list of drivers for your car, some insurers will also reduce your car insurance rates (unless one of named is a young driver). If you have been driving safely without any accidents or claims for repairs, you will be able to get a cheap car insurance quotes.

Some people prefer to import cars because the retail prices on domestic cars are not that attractive or that the imported cars have special appeal. Whether the aim is to save costs or to stand out on the roads, you need to beware of high import car insurance rates. It is easier for insurers to provide a competitive quote on domestic cars because of their wealth of statistics on those makes of vehicles. They have a list of mechanics that are able to quickly and cheaply repair and handle any car insurance claims, because of the easy availability of parts locally.

However, many car owners know that the biggest problem of buying an imported car without a local distributor is the issue of warranty and replacement parts. That is why repair costs are substantially higher and you often need to wait a few weeks for any required parts to be shipped in from overseas. That is why import car insurance is consequently more expensive.

You also need to check whether your imported cars meet the local vehicle safety standards or not. For example, even though many countries have adopted the European New Car Assessment Programme standard, there are still some cars that are not tested accordingly. You are likely to end up with high car insurance costs to such grey imports. That may well undermine any potential savings on the cost of car ownership which you are trying to get by importing a car. Parallel imports are usually subjected to lesser car insurance rates loading, since they are usually built to the same safety standards as the official imports, just that you do not get any warranties on service and repair from the official dealer.

Modified Car Insurance

Try to make modifications to your imported vehicles to the minimum. A stock import car will be given cheaper car insurance rates compared to a heavily mudded car. Although it will look more flashy and cool, you need to justify for yourself whether it is worth the extra charges on your car insurance payments.