Minibus insurance in France - help!!

[alandpaula]

Hello everyone - can anyone help me??

We have a 9 seater VW Caravelle LWB, and are going out to France for the winter season to run our ski chalet in the pyrenees.  It is obviously registered here in the UK - but we need to insure it in France as we will be picking people up to/from airports.  All of the english insurance companies won't insure us in france as we are going for 4 months, and obviously we will be coming back to the UK in  April so don't want to register it in France - any ideas?

Kind Regards

Paula

www.vivelespyrenees.com

[Cassis]

Why not insure it with a French insurer?  They will insure a Welsh registered vehicle.

[Will]

It may be difficult, for four months. I have read elsewhere (but cannnot confirm or deny) that French insurers will now only insure British registered vehicles for the time it takes to legally re-register them in France. If you just wanted minimum legal cover you would probably get away with it, but you will need full passenger liability for what you propose (as Mrs Will does, for taking agency clients in her car) - and believe me, that can be bloody expensive in France.

Mind you I have read at the same 'elsewhere' that it will soon be against the law to register a right hand drive vehicle in France - and that there is a door-to-door shuttle bus service between France and England (! - no website, but a hotmail e-mail address), so a large sack of salt rather than just the customary pinch might be needed. But I do think the insurance information came from none other than our own Sunday Driver - or maybe somebody impersonating him - so I take that a lot more seriously.

[Sunday Driver]

Cheers, Will! [;-)]

There are a few issues here.

In Paula's case, she would be looking to insure a fully legal minibus - she is UK resident and the bus is UK registered, so her winter business visit complies with the EU six month rule.  She should be able to approach a French insurer and their decision should be on a pure commercial risk basis rather than involving a legal/illegal vehicle scenario. As you say, cost is, of course another matter.

The insurance companies who are refusing to provide/maintain cover for French resident Brits who have not imported their vehicle within the legal timescales appear to be quoting legislation concerning (amongst other things) cross border risk.  Interestingly, the legislation is being (or may have already been) updated to make it illegal for insurers to refuse to provide "overseas" cover or charge extra premiums for the privilage (as in Paula's case).

The new legislation is also designed to make it easier for people moving to another EU state to obtain local insurance for their imported vehicles.  If this approach is being formalised, then I suspect that the law will incorporate mandatory checks by insurers to identify non-legally imported vehicles and therefore I imagine the the insurers may be pre-empting their future responsibilities. 

Finally, regarding the latest myth about it soon being against the law to register a RHD vehicle in France, I can find no basis in EU legislation that would permit France to consider taking such an unusual step.....

 

 

[alandpaula]

Thanks everyone for all of your replies - really useful.  The van is already insured here in the UK - so I don't want to have to pay double insurance (i.e for when we bring it back..but it looks as though we might have to :-)