So I’m 22, based in Essex, and planning ahead a bit — by the time I actually buy the car I’ll have around 2 years on my licence.
The car I want is a BMW 5 Series G30 520d M Sport (2017–2020), but specifically a Japanese import.
Here’s where it gets confusing:
When I run quotes on comparison sites for a UK-spec G30 520d, I can get quotes around £2k with a black box (Hastings etc), which seems reasonable.
But as soon as I switch it to a Japanese import version, I either:
get no quotes at all, or
get something ridiculous like £13k from Admiral
What I don’t understand is:
It’s basically the same car — same engine, same shape, similar spec — so why does it completely kill insurance options?
My main question is:
👉 Is it worth going through specialist brokers (Adrian Flux, Howdens, Greenlight, etc.) for something like this?
Will they actually be able to give me quotes where comparison sites won’t?
And more importantly — are those quotes likely to be anywhere near reasonable (like even close to the £2k mark), or am I realistically looking at £3k–£5k+ anyway?
I’ve seen mixed things online — some people say specialists are the way to go for imports, others say they were still expensive or even worse than normal insurers.
Just trying to figure out if:
it’s worth the effort going down the specialist route, or
I should just stick to a UK car and avoid the headache altogether
Anyone been in a similar situation with imports / G30s / being a younger driver?