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Mikejac
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My wife and I are in the process of buying a house in 46.  We will be moving there next April and I am looking for advice about insurance for our UK registered car, which we intend to re-register in France. I have been making enquiries about insuring the car in France and have found that I will be unable to do so until it has its Controle Technique.

The advice I have received  is, in general, to stay on UK insurance until the French policy can be put into effect, but this seems to rely on the fact that most UK insurance policies extend cover (for a limited period) to use abroad, which is of course intended for holidays, business trips etc.  I am concerned that if I were to rely on this and be involved in an accident my insurance company would soon discover that I was no longer resident in the UK and would deny my claim.

Does anyone have any experience and/or further advice on this issue.  I realise that I could seek advice from my insurance company but that may well be negative and I don't want to 'show my hand' at this stage.

Mikejac

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I am not an expert but have been through the insurance and car import process and have a little knowledge about this.

If you are not moving here until April then the best thing is to keep your UK insurers informed of your trips and at then at least you will be covered as per your UK policy and any green card coverage.

If you are sort of living here now then I would suggest that you speak to a French agent about insuring the vehicle for third party. I don't believe it is possible to insure a British registered vehicle for fully comp here in France until it is fully compliant with France. ie It has been imported and plated for France.

I know a lot of people may say that you can get fully comp cover for a non French registered vehicle but be very carefull. You will only find out if the cover is any good after you need to claim.

I hope this helps you.

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The information you have been given seems inaccurate. You do not need a French Controle Technique to insure a British registered vehicle in France, unless the law has changed very recently. You will need evidence from your British insurer of how many years you have been insured without claim, in order to benefit from any bonus (this works a bit differently in France). Your French insurer will probably require to you register the vehicle in France within a certain time. Agents for the big insurers like AGF or AXA will be able to help you, or there are specialist English-speaking brokers should you prefer to go down that route. I would see to this soon after arrival in France, don't rely on British insurance, for exactly the reasons you state (many give only legal minimum cover overseas anyway, unless you make special arrangements). Don't forget to cancel the British insurance.

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Will is absolutely correct about thr CT not being a pre-requisite to

French insurance cover. It is of course necessary to have a CT before

you can register your car in France.

 Do as the others suggest, keep your UK insurance until you move

permanently.  What I was offered by my UK insurer was a green card

for 90 days when I came here,  to cover me fully comp until I

sorted out a French insurer.  This was easily done through my

local Groupama agent and the UK policy was then cancelled.

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I was surprised to find that French insurers require much more evidence of no-claims discount than the UK insurers, up to 13 years in fact! It's worth collecting this evidence now, before you move, as you'll find it difficult later.

Vehicle premiums here work on a system of 'bonus' for good claims record, and 'malus' for any claims made, and the previous 13 years is taken into account. Also there is not the same tendancy to jump from one insurer to another each year as we often do in UK. This may be due to the notice period required when cancelling a policy (2 months).

  

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Thanks for your responses guys.

I have been told by more than one source (broker and french insurance co) that they will provide fully comp cover on my UK registered car, but, as it is over 4 years old, it needs a Controle Technique first.  Also, the policy offered by the broker (which seems good value) requires that I re-register the car within 6 months. There will, therefore, be a gap of several days between leaving the UK 'for good' and getting my French insurance organized, because of the need for the CT.

My point is therefore what do people do to cover themselves during this period?  The options so far seem to be:

1. Keep my UK insurance going during this period and hope that if I do have an accident my UK insurance company won't find out I am no longer resident in the UK.  Fat chance of that as I will be communicating with them from an address in France, which might be a bit of a giveaway or

2. Hmm.

Mikejac

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what company did you choose to register your uk registered car? we will give it a go at our end too.[quote user="Quackers"]Our 106 is 9 years old we moved over in Aug got insurance cover no problem. You do not need CT  for insurance. We are know in process of registering car. Suggest you try another insurance company[/quote]
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[quote user="Mikejac"]Thanks for your responses guys.

I have been told by more than one source (broker and french insurance co) that they will provide fully comp cover on my UK registered car, but, as it is over 4 years old, it needs a Controle Technique first.  Also, the policy offered by the broker (which seems good value) requires that I re-register the car within 6 months. [/quote]

Hi Mike

I think from what I've read that we were in the same position as you when we moved here permanently last year.  Our car was well over 4 yrs old but we did not need a CT to get it insured.  We insured with AGF through an agency run by a chap called Thierry Marcq.  The agency specialises in English-speakers.  We did need proof of no-claims but we got fully comp for less than it cost us in the UK (mind we used to live in London).  Tel. for Thierry Marcq is 00.33.321.111.710.  All his staff seem to speak very good English.  Email [email protected].  I believe that if you are French resident you have to get a carte grise within 6 months of your importing your vehicle from the UK so if you move here as a resident you'll need a CT sooner rather than later anyway.  But the CT centre we went to was not at all fazed by doing a CT on an English car which at the time obviously still had English registration.

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"I believe that by law (no doubt Will can put me right if it's wrong!) you have to get a carte grise within 6 months of your importing your vehicle from the UK"

In Britain, DVLA quotes international agreements which say foreign-registered vehicles have to be re-registered if they spend more than a certain number of days in their new country. I think it works out at about six months. Whether the agreement is enforceable or not in law is a different matter, and nobody seems to know for sure whether or not France applies the same guideline. There are plenty of people on this forum who insist that long-term British registered vehicles on French raods are perfactly legal, and even more who will say they are not. I personally think that people who do not re-register are taking a big risk.

I can confirm that AGF will insure British-registered vehicles without the need for a French CT, and that the CT can be carried out under British plates.

 

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We insured our Corsa with MAAF when our UK insurance ran out six weeks after arriving in France in March.  No problems, no CT to produce, etc.  MAAF issued us with a a 6-month insurance certificate to give us time to re-register in France.  We subsequently did the CT as part of the re-registration process.  It was done on the UK plate, too.

We also re-registered our motorbike here and due to a delay in obtaining the certificate of conformity from Honda France, MAAF just gave us a follow on insurance certificate -dated to the end of the year.

Once everything was sorted, we just took our new carte grises back to MAAF and they issued new certificates with the French registration numbers on them.

When we later bought a french car, we needed insurance certificates for - the original reg number, then the temporary change of ownership number, then our own number.  MAAF printed them off each time we asked them - without any bother.  Imagine trying to do this with a UK insurer?

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This is possibly an odd-ball type of insurance question. We have a

maison de vacance in Normandy, no house in UK but an 'accommodation'

address there (daughter). Our car is 2005 and on UK plates with UK

insurance. Wife will be spending 5 months in France this summer (away

from UAE Heat) with car. What is best advice regarding car insurance,

we do not want to register car in France as it will spend remainder of

year in UK, ie sept 2006 to May 2007. How can we ensure full comp cover

in France? or can we ? Anyone had any similar experience ?

All info will be gratefully received.

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The car we bought had been originally registered to a guy who lived in in Dept 44.  The garage (in Dept 49) issued us with a carte grise provisoire with a temporary WW registration number, eg 1234 AWW 49.  We eventually received "our" regular number with a 79 suffix.

I understand that garages buy temporary carte grises in batches and issue them to the customer when they sell a car.  They are valid for two weeks, although when we asked them how long it would take to receive our own carte grise, they said "usually about three weeks"!!!  The garage rang us in about ten days and said the carte grise had arrived and that our new plates were ready for us to pop in and have fitted.

The temporary carte grise is a tatty grey paper affair that looks like it was produced by a back street printer during the 1930's...... 

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Just to add my ha'porth, I have to agree with Cassis, and would

heartily recommend Thierry Marcq.  He specialises in all personal

lines insurance for UK and ex-pat customers, and is very helpful

indeed.

The fact that I work for the same Group in the UK has no bearing on my recommendation - I don't even get a Group discount!

Peter

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We have a classic car, Reliant Scimitar and insured it with no problem

with Aviva. All they needed was personal details, proof of NC bonus and

UK log book. Incidentally we have had no problem getting it Controle

techniqued here either. It has been on the road here for more than 5

years now.

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[quote user="Teamedup"]

We live on a border and have often bought cars from a garage in the next dept. We have never had WW plates unless purchasing a brand new car. We have just kept the old number until the vehicule was registered with our prefecture.

[/quote]

WW plates are for use by "professionals" (ie garages) and for imported vehicles where the original plates have been retained by the foreigh authorities (eg Germany, Belgium etc).  The plates last 15 days and where there is a potential delay in registration due to obtaining a certificate of conformity or SVA test through the DRIRE, the prefecture will issue a second 15 day plate if necessary.

Perhaps garages need to issue WW plates because the original plate has "expired" after the vehicle was traded in and the prefecture notified of the change in ownership.

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