Commonly Asked Questions

About Car Insurance for Long Term or Unlimited Temporary Use on the Continent of Europe

Must I have a UK driving licence?

No, a full Foreign licence is acceptable provided the licence is valid in the UK.

What countries may I be based in or visit?

The 40 States of the EU which includes Croatia, Norway and Switzerland..

If I want to return to the UK by other means, may I leave the car in Europe?

Yes

May I renew the policy after the first year?

Yes, we have clients who have renewed their policy for the past ten years.

How can I pay?

We accept payment by all major credit cards.

Things you may want the answer to.

Why does this policy have a higher premium than my standard UK item.

UK Insurers form an alliance with UK repairers which they refer to as “approved” repairers, the Insurers get a discount on parts, the repairers are obliged to keep a fleet of vehicles to loan to the customer and the hourly labour rate they are paid is squeezed as low as it can possibly be.

This they agree to as they need the volume business from the UK Insurer just to keep going having also spent a fortune to have the latest equipment.

Vehicles are expensive to repair, fancy paint, air conditioning, so two radiators at the front plus maybe an intercooler for the turbo so that is now three, just imagine the cost when you run into the back of another car, having done that those handy parking sensors in the other fellows bumper cost a fortune to replace.

There are any number of electronic gizmos that you love to specify when ordering your car, satnav, reversing sensors dvd players, fancy glass roof and on and on and on it goes.

Now insurance companies do not like to pay too much so the repairer is the least line of resistance.

You of course are out of UK for fair periods of time and you have an accident, now then:

No “approved” repairer, so no discounted labour rates, no discount on parts, the majority of UK vehicles are right hand drive so a lot of parts have to be specially ordered, oh dear now the costs are mounting, and what happens if it is a total loss? Well in most cases the UK insurer brings the car back to the UK to be scrapped, any idea of the cost of shipping a car back to UK from, say South of France , (say £2000) Greece  (say £4000) and the further away the more it gets!

Once you start to get to Denmark, Sweden, Norway etc all costs are huge, a windscreen for your Range Rover fitted, yes, ok £2000 sir.

So you probably are becoming aware that this policy may actually be better value than the UK item.

We have not even touched on the subject that most EU insurers pay the maximum laid down by the EU as there are monetary limits on Third Party injuries. UK Insurers pay the same as they do here………..UNLIMITED!

Now you will have an idea of why there are very few companies transacting motor insurance with extended period foreign use.

Admin Fees

Why does this policy have a higher premium than my standard UK item.

Why do i have to pay admin fees when you earn commission which should provide your income?

We are still earning the same rate of commission as we did 40 years ago.

Be aware that the government now takes 12% of your premium,……….AND For What?

40 years ago there was none of that.

As our business is 99.9% European and most of our calls are international, we do not resort to those voice over internet systems as we find the quality very poor, trying to take information is a nightmare, particularly card numbers or any other complex information so we use real phones and pay for the pleasure. Between the poor communication systems our clients use and their lousy handwriting it is not surprising that documents end up with incorrect info, and that is before we make errors as we are, you will be pleased to know, human.

40 years ago we were not paying long distance international calls.

We spend over £1500 per month on the bespoke broker computer systems which we are obliged to use due to the electronic communication required..

40 years ago these did not exist.

You now have the comfort of what was the fsa and has now become the FCA, Regulators, a relatively recent bureaucratic phenomena which, you will be aware has not saved any of the financial disasters of recent years………..THEY even charge us a levy for the misselling of ppi insurance which we have never ever sold!

40 years ago we were not paying levies for sins we did not commit.

When the general insurance standards council first came into being they charged a fee of £500 per year. We have been charged this year’s fee to the FCA of over £6000!!  This is one office with just six people.

40 years ago there was none of this.

So………YES We do charge Admin Fees, the alternative is that we would not exist and then what would you do?