Car Insurance

[redwood]

Could anyone give me some experiences with insuring a car in France? We will be moving to france next year and spending the greater part of the year there. We will keep a house in the UK but I understand that the French regs will require me to re-register my car in France and I will therefore need French insurance.

I'm in the process of deciding whether to bring a rhd car to France and adjust the headlights or source a lhd car as most of my year will be in france. Cost and availablity of vehicles is an issue and one part of the equation is the cost of insurance in France. From what I have read normal car insurance is on par with the UK in terms of cost but I've always assumed that was for a lhd car.

Does anyone have any examples of the increased cost of insuring a rhd car in France ?

[EuroTrash]

I don't think it makes a scrap of difference.

I have an old RHD car on French plates, costs (from memory) slightly over 100 euros for the equivalent of 3rd party cover and an annual mileage of 5000 kms. (Though I do well there - I did explain to the broker that my odometer registers miles not kms, and he thought about it, scratched his head, decided it was all too complicated and said oh just take the reading, I'm not going to worry about that. So in fact I get 8000 km for the price of 5000!)

As I recall I did ask at the outset if it made any difference to the premium it being RHD, and again they looked surprised and said no, why should it?

[Araucaria]

I asked my insurer (Groupama) the same question, and got the same reply - it makes no difference if the car is RHD. And that was a reasonably modern car (2004 Berlingo).