Insurance for UK resident's car fur use in France

[Jazzer]

A friend who has owned a house here for some 20 years, has decided the journey is too much for him, and has bought an 18 month old car which he intends bringing over to France, leaving it here and then travelling via plane or train. In the first instance his son will bring the car over. He tells me they have been "straight" with the insurance companies, but so far all have declined unless he guarantees that he will bring the car back to the UK.Apparently it is to do with avoidance of import duties.

As I received this information via a telephone call I may have missed something, but has anyone else had any experience of this kind of situation?

Any help would be appreciated.

[dave21478]

Easiest legal solution is to register the car in France and get French insurance.

Other options - leave it on UK plates and UK insurance. However, after 90 days or so, he will only have third party cover.

- Leave it on UK plates and find a French insurer who will cover it. This was allegedly being cracked down upon, but there are still companies that will do it.

Nobody really gives a sh1t, including the French police. There is talk of crackdowns a lot, but there are still a hell of a lot of UK cars in France like this, most of them in p1ss-poor mechanical states too, having seen neither MOT or Control Technique for years or in some cases I know, decades.

God knows what would happen in either case if a claim had to be made.

[nectarine]

Saga insurance would insure a UK car for overseas use for, I think, 364 days a year meaning that you would have to bring it back to the UK. If you had a UK reg car then you'd have to bring it back for an annual MOT anyway. As long as you are UK resident then I'm fairly sure this complies with their requirement, worth giving them a ring as they had the best kind of insurance deal for overseas use (as I remember)

[suein56]

[quote user="dave21478"]Easiest legal solution is to register the car in France and get French insurance. [/quote]

+1

especially considering that, in France, the CT is only every 2 years and there would be no need to have to take the car back to the Uk every year for an MOT to keep it legal.

Sue

[YCCMB]

+2. If he's leaving the car in France, registering it in France and getting French insurance is not complicated and avoids any later nasty surprises. I've done it myself, and can't see any simpler alternatives.

[EuroTrash]

+ another 1 for registering in France.

Trouble with insuring in the UK is that, out of the limited number of UK insurers that offer 365 day EU cover, many of those specifically exclude periods where the car is left abroad and you're not with it. So if they left it in France and came back to find it trashed, they couldn't claim a bean.

Trouble with leaving on UK plates and insuring in France is, what do you tell DVLC? Declaring it SORN if it is being used abroad is illegal. But if you don't SORN it, and you don't keep it continuously taxed (which requires an MOT) and insured through a UK insurer on the MIB database, you risk having automatic fines drop through the post simply as a result of the car being flagged up by the DVLC as on the road but untaxed and/or uninsured.

Vehicles that have been abroad for ages are probably getting away with it because they'll have dropped of the DVLC computer, or the fines are going to addresses that no longer have any connection with the owner. But vehicle taxation and insurance is tightly monitored these days.

[andyh4]

[quote user="suein56"][quote user="dave21478"]Easiest legal solution is to register the car in France and get French insurance. [/quote]
+1

especially considering that, in France, the CT is only every 2 years and there would be no need to have to take the car back to the Uk every year for an MOT to keep it legal.

Sue
[/quote]

and no road fund licence to pay - so maybe an up front cost to get the car to French standard re lights and registered, but after that quids/€uros in

[Jazzer]

Thanks everyone for advice. I understand he will be getting the car across next week. He will then register and insure here,I am giving a lift for them to catch the TGV.to Paris.