Insuring Expat Cars?

[Mello]

Mrs M + daughter and I are emigrating to France soon. We have 2 regular cars plus I have a 'historic' Ford Pop (1956) to insure.

Any useful advice on how to go about this?? (I know, contact an insurance company). Anything more than that, based on your experiences, expats?

Thanks in anticipation...

[smifffymoto]

I think Generali are just about the only insurer of UK registered cars but I may be wrong.Where in are you going to live(area)?

[Mello]

Thanks smiffy, we'll be living near Mayenne (53) just inside Lower Normandy/Orne (61)...

I've had some useful interest from Retroassur for the Pop, and a broker at Allianz, so I'll also talk to your suggested company too

[ColinM50]

I've got best part of 400 Brits working for me in France and a lot of them have their own cars here, me included, so we've got a little bit of experience of this so maybe I can help.

Most of the normal high street UK insurers, the likes of Churchill, Direct Line, Tesco etc will only cover your UK car abroad for a limited time on full comp or 3rd party. If you keep the car abroad longer than their "rules" you'll only be covered the legal minimum, so as an example the legal min in UK is what's called Road Traffic Act, this is not the same as 3rd party.

So, if your car is insured in UK full comp and your insurer says 35 days European cover any one trip, then you have to come back to UK on day 36 or you'll only be insured legal minimum. And of course you can lie and cheat but what happens if you're injured or worse in an accident and haven't got your travel dates right?

So you want to do it correctly?

For normal UK registered production cars we've found a couple of good UK brokers who offer proper long term/12 month UK Green Card insurance.

http://www.andrewcopeland.co.uk
http://www.stuartcollins.com

You can get quotes on line with both of these brokers or of course you can contact the Assoction of British insurers for other companies/brokers. I think www.abi.org.uk

One advantage of insuring your car in the UK like this is that you don't have to keep your UK road tax up to date - in fact both brokers tell you to cancel it and do a SORN to DVLA so you save a bit of money that way. You do however need to keep your MoT up to date to show roadworthiness. If it expires in France then you should really get a French equivalent, a Controle Technique. A bit more involved than our MoT but you will need to change your headlights to dip "the other way".

And when I mentioned earlier "normal UK registered production cars" that's because I'm having great trouble getting 12 month cover for my kit car, but that's another story.

[Marcellus]

I thought that a lot of French Insurers will insure a UK registered car PROVIDED you are in the process of tranferring to French plates.....

[bosshog]

Marcellus said:

I thought that a lot of French Insurers will insure a UK registered car PROVIDED you are in the process of tranferring to French plates.....

I think you are correct.

[bosshog]

ColinM50 said:

Most of the normal high street UK insurers, the likes of Churchill, Direct Line, Tesco etc will only cover your UK car abroad for a limited time on full comp or 3rd party. If you keep the car abroad longer than their "rules" you'll only be covered the legal minimum, so as an example the legal min in UK is what's called Road Traffic Act, this is not the same as 3rd party.

I recently heard that the European gov ruled that Uk insurance companies could not differientate between the Uk and the rest of Europe, as in all pther countries you are insure pan-europe. They might want to tell you different - could be worth trying to find out the rules on that..

ColinM50 said:

You do however need to keep your MoT up to date to show roadworthiness. If it expires in France then you should really get a French equivalent, a Controle Technique. A bit more involved than our MoT but you will need to change your headlights to dip "the other way".

Don't most insurance policies (in the small print) demand that you have a valid MOT (and hence road tax aswell)?. I know 7 years or so ago a CT would not be deemed a valid MOT.

[ColinM50]

Boss, I've been going through this process within the last month trying (unsuccessfully) to get my kit car insured in France and both the brokers I mentioned in my earlier post said that for a normal car UK road tax wasn't necessary but either MoT OR CT (as relevant) was required.

[bosshog]

ColinM50 said:

Boss, I've been going through this process within the last month trying (unsuccessfully) to get my kit car insured in France and both the brokers I mentioned in my earlier post said that for a normal car UK road tax wasn't necessary but either MoT OR CT (as relevant) was required.

ok thats good to know.

[Pvapour]

the AA will be relieved

[nel]

ColinM50 said:

Boss, I've been going through this process within the last month trying (unsuccessfully) to get my kit car insured in France and both the brokers I mentioned in my earlier post said that for a normal car UK road tax wasn't necessary but either MoT OR CT (as relevant) was required.

I'm always assumed that you'd need both paid up road tax and a british MOT for the insurance to remain valid. Having read this thread, I can see the logic of not needing the road tax, but the question of a CT being considered to replace an MOT does seem dubious to me. For a start, MOT is annual whereas CT biannual, so with the CT there is much more scope for a car to develop serious technical failings before a retest.

This thread is doubly interesting given the radical difference in car prices on the 2nd hand market, UK compared to France....

[bosshog]

nel said:

I'm always assumed that you'd need both paid up road tax and a british MOT for the insurance to remain valid.

thats always what I thought. I suppose if you get a letter from the insurance company stating a CT will do (even if you need to go and get it each year) then all good. However I would do it unless I'd get that letter..

(been looking at getting a uk car - 40% cheaper!)

[HappyGoLucky]

It seems to be down to the broker you go through as well, all of our cars are insured through AXA and when we got a letter from the head office saying we had x weeks to have the cars registered or the policies would be invalid, I called the broker told us not to worry, she contacted them and we got a letter back saying it had to be done within the year or they wouldn't renew. The broker told us not to worry about that either but by then we'd transferred the cars over to French plates so it wasn't an issue.

On the road tax issue I'm sure I read somewhere that in addition to the minimum legal cover for France, the car had to have everything that would be normally be required in the home country i.e. road fund and MOT. I'm fairly ertain the only time UK plates, no road fund/mot and a CT is OK is when you are going though the process of reregistering a vehicle??

[Nobbles]

Marks and Spencer's insurance policies have 90 day fully comp allowance in europe, but unlimited trips. Usually with other brokers it is limited to 1 trip per year. Good to know if you are in Northern France.

[leyorkie]

Surely the RFL is for a car to run on UK roads.
Some years ago we rallied in Belgium and France and once we were over the channel the service van was run on red (tax free) diesel bought from the canal boat refuelling place for 26p per litre. Now we all know that is illegal to do in the UK as you are avoiding UK tax but away from the UK it is not enforcable. The customs and excise don't chase us for tax not paid on alcohol brought into the UK, all French tax was paid on purchase.
Different countries different rules.
I dont pay RFL on my French car when in the UK for upto 6 months and as there is no RFL in France you dont pay there.

[andyps]

One thing I did read recently is that it is not legal for a UK resident to drive a car registered outside the UK, so I couldn't have a car based at my French house which was registered there and bring it back to the UK and legally drive it. My understanding is that similar rules apply the other way round. Has anyone found a way around this or is it best just to ignore the law and make sure MOT, tax and insurance are all up to date and hope for the best?

[Doofus]

andyps said:

One thing I did read recently is that it is not legal for a UK resident to drive a car registered outside the UK, so I couldn't have a car based at my French house which was registered there and bring it back to the UK and legally drive it. My understanding is that similar rules apply the other way round. Has anyone found a way around this or is it best just to ignore the law and make sure MOT, tax and insurance are all up to date and hope for the best?

Are you sure? I think you'll find the law says that you can't keep a foreign registered car in the UK for more than six months. It's not that you can't drive it at all.

[PottyMouth]

One thing that concerns me with registering UK reg cars with French insurers is the possibility of ANPR problems if back visiting Britain.

French policies are not going to be on the PNC, and I can't see many Traffpol accepting a foreign document on UK plates....

[andyps]

Doofus said:

andyps said:

One thing I did read recently is that it is not legal for a UK resident to drive a car registered outside the UK, so I couldn't have a car based at my French house which was registered there and bring it back to the UK and legally drive it. My understanding is that similar rules apply the other way round. Has anyone found a way around this or is it best just to ignore the law and make sure MOT, tax and insurance are all up to date and hope for the best?

Are you sure? I think you'll find the law says that you can't keep a foreign registered car in the UK for more than six months. It's not that you can't drive it at all.

I knew I had seen this somewhere:
From this page - http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSell... -

direct.gov said:

UK residents are not allowed to use a foreign registered vehicle on UK roads

Although it looks like it might change - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/caradvice/hone...

[Doofus]

andyps said:

I knew I had seen this somewhere:
From this page - http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSell... -

direct.gov said:

UK residents are not allowed to use a foreign registered vehicle on UK roads

Well, well. I stand corrected.

How the heck am I going to get my French car back to France then?...

Edited by Doofus on Monday 25th January 13:50