Car insurance in France?

[derin100]

We're looking to take a car to France, getting it registered there and leaving it at our house there to be used whilst we're there on holiday a few times a year but the expected mileage per year is likely to be quite low.

Had one quote from Credit Agricole who we bank with there but it seems quite high? (630 Euros plus an extra 40 Euros for 'Home Start' breakdown cover with a 5000km limit).

Car is a 2002 BMW E39 525i Touring.

Just wondered if by chance any other PHers have had experience or done similar and got a good deal elsewhere.

Thanks in advance

[Marcellus]

We insured a 2005 Nissan Xtrail for €450 a year including European Brakedown cover.. that was with Generali.

You have to remember that the cost of insurance includes Road Tax and covers the car so anyone can drive it as opposed to the UK where it's the driver.

[derin100]

Thanks Marcellus!

I didn't realise the insurance covers anyone to drive it? That's potentially really useful as eventually we hope to be hiring the house out for holiday lets so if a car was included that might make it even more attractive to potential holiday-makers.

We'll get in touch with them as well.

Thanks again.

Edited by derin100 on Tuesday 9th November 09:54

[plg]

Doesn't sound too bad. Assuming it is RHD and you being a non-resident - must be adding a risk loading on to the premium.

[derin100]

Yep...car is RHD and we're not permanent residents in France.

Hmmm....Should have really looked into this before I bought the car and then put it in for nearly a full respray in anticipation of taking it there next month, shouldn't I?

[plg]

derin100 said:

Yep...car is RHD and we're not permanent residents in France.

Hmmm....Should have really looked into this before I bought the car and then put it in for nearly a full respray in anticipation of taking it there next month, shouldn't I?

Whereabouts in France? If you rent out, PM me any details?

[Doofus]

I have a LHD French registered car there, and mine's insured with Axa. Not sure exactly how much, but less than €350

[derin100]

plg said:

derin100 said:

Yep...car is RHD and we're not permanent residents in France.

Hmmm....Should have really looked into this before I bought the car and then put it in for nearly a full respray in anticipation of taking it there next month, shouldn't I?

Whereabouts in France? If you rent out, PM me any details?

Lot et Garonne...between Bergerac and Marmande.

Still a little way off being ready for holiday rentals. I reckon we're still about a year off (and still will have no swimming pool even then). But will PM you.

[derin100]

Doofus said:

I have a LHD French registered car there, and mine's insured with Axa. Not sure exactly how much, but less than €350

I presume you did that through AXA in France? Thanks.

[plg]

derin100 said:

Still a little way off being ready for holiday rentals. I reckon we're still about a year off (and still will have no swimming pool even then). But will PM you.

Thanks. Nice region.

[Doofus]

derin100 said:

Doofus said:

I have a LHD French registered car there, and mine's insured with Axa. Not sure exactly how much, but less than €350

I presume you did that through AXA in France? Thanks.

Yes. I use a broker in a town nearby and they handle all my insurances. I'm not resident in France either, so I am prepared to apy for the convenience of using a single source.

[derin100]

Thanks Doofus. We'll have to look into that in more detail.

I gather that one has to have actually owned the car for 6 months before it can be french registered? As we've only just bought it we may have to take it there and leave it on english plates (and insurance) for a while anyway.

[Doofus]

derin100 said:

I gather that one has to have actually owned the car for 6 months before it can be french registered?

Are you sure? That doesn't sound right to me. I think you;re supposed to register it in France if it's kep tthere for more than six months or something, but once you have the V5 and CoC you can get it registered straight away AFAIK.

[Marcellus]

Doofus said:

derin100 said:

I gather that one has to have actually owned the car for 6 months before it can be french registered?

Are you sure? That doesn't sound right to me. I think you;re supposed to register it in France if it's kep tthere for more than six months or something, but once you have the V5 and CoC you can get it registered straight away AFAIK.

There is something around this but I can't remember exactly what it is......... I've had friends who've been caught out as they bought it vat free in the uk and then stung for TVA....... and there is also something about the car being for personal use not importing as a business...... might be worth asking in the French Sub forum!

[derin100]

Will do.

As we understand it (so far). There's a french ECO Tax payable on first import. Based on the category that the 525i falls into this would have equated to 750 Euros when new but this figured is reduced by 10% for each year of the car's age. As this car is 8 years old I was anticipating paying 150 Euros. We have already paid VAT on the car here.

More research to do me thinks?!

[Bluebarge]

In your shoes I think I would have bought something LHD, cheap and probably French, unless the local Garagiste is experienced with BMWs. If the BM breaks down on you, most parts will be the same as for an LHD BMW, but some will not, and may be a pain in the backside to obtain, unless you're prepared to source them yourself from the UK.

In rural France you're never very far from a Peugeot/Citroen or Renault dealer, or a garagiste who knows all about them, but other marques' representation can be thin on the ground.

[james12345]

We did the same thing with an old 1994 Volvo 850 estate. Bought in the UK, driven to France the following week, and used in France for circa 2 months before going through the "alleged" hassle of registering it.

Walked through its Controlle Technique (equivalent of the MOT - valid for 2 years) then headed to our local licensing office. Once we had been sent a little around the houses to get a tax exemption from the local tax office, got it registered after waiting in for about 2 hours in queues at the licensing office.

AFAIR, it cost us about 200 Euros to register it. Insurance is a bargain - around 26 Euros a month, wife as main driver (she had nine years provable no claims in the UK which the French insurance will take as proof of no accidents - well worth looking into this to lower your premium). We're with Axa, all done at the local office, where they spoke excellent English! Also, you'll get a discount for having multiple policies, so we moved our house insurance over to them at the same time to pretty much halve their quote.

And yes - it's insured for all drivers, but anyone other than the policy holder and their spouse will have something like a 750 Euro excess. We thought about offering it as an "extra" to our rented house, but decided against it - what if a guest one week crashes it, and it's not available for the guests comning out the following week??

We park ours at Bergerac airport - it's currently 550 Euros for an annual car park pass. It's great to be able to walk out of the airport building, across the road, into your own car and be away ages before any of the arriving passengers have even started the paperwork on the hire cars!!

Also, we have a Maplin's solar battery charger on the dashboard - car often sits for 4 or 5 months when we're not there, and only once have I had to ask a passing Brit for a jump start (keep jump leads in the boot, just in case!!)

[james12345]

Bluebarge said:

In your shoes I think I would have bought something LHD, cheap and probably French

We looked into this, and it's cheaper to buy RHD in England, take it over and register it. Seems that even a LHD Pug 106, for example, goes for way more than a RHD barge in the UK.

[derin100]

james12345 said:

We did the same thing with an old 1994 Volvo 850 estate. Bought in the UK, driven to France the following week, and used in France for circa 2 months before going through the "alleged" hassle of registering it.

Walked through its Controlle Technique (equivalent of the MOT - valid for 2 years) then headed to our local licensing office. Once we had been sent a little around the houses to get a tax exemption from the local tax office, got it registered after waiting in for about 2 hours in queues at the licensing office.

AFAIR, it cost us about 200 Euros to register it. Insurance is a bargain - around 26 Euros a month, wife as main driver (she had nine years provable no claims in the UK which the French insurance will take as proof of no accidents - well worth looking into this to lower your premium). We're with Axa, all done at the local office, where they spoke excellent English! Also, you'll get a discount for having multiple policies, so we moved our house insurance over to them at the same time to pretty much halve their quote.

And yes - it's insured for all drivers, but anyone other than the policy holder and their spouse will have something like a 750 Euro excess. We thought about offering it as an "extra" to our rented house, but decided against it - what if a guest one week crashes it, and it's not available for the guests comning out the following week??

We park ours at Bergerac airport - it's currently 550 Euros for an annual car park pass. It's great to be able to walk out of the airport building, across the road, into your own car and be away ages before any of the arriving passengers have even started the paperwork on the hire cars!!

Also, we have a Maplin's solar battery charger on the dashboard - car often sits for 4 or 5 months when we're not there, and only once have I had to ask a passing Brit for a jump start (keep jump leads in the boot, just in case!!)

Thanks James...that's all excellent advice! So there's no compulsory 6 months ownership before we can apply to register it there?

Our house is actually only 30 mins drive from Bergerac airport. So depending on how often we're managing to get across the annual parking pass at the airport may be the way to go. This was the little connundrum that we still hadn't figured out...we were thinking along the lines of a taxi each time but that may stack up a bit over the course of a year depending on the cost to and fro each time and how often we go.

We'll look into all of that. Our house insurance is with Credit Agricole and it seemed a good price so I was hoping for similar on the car front but AXA may certainly be worth looking into.

I agree, after reading what you said, that allowing people renting the house to have use of the car doesn't sound like too good an idea now.

We did look into buying a LHD car in France itself but basically it seemed like they were all much more expensive than anything one can buy here. Any equivalent BMW for example was way, way more!

In terms of the BMW going wrong if I can't fix it myself there's a BMW dealer in Bergerac. Also we took a similar BMW Touring over whilst on holiday this summer and a self-levelling suspension bag burst whilst we were there. However, we managed to get a new one from BMW in France within a day (just as it would be here) and it was the same price as here.

Thanks again.

[derin100]

Bluebarge said:

In your shoes I think I would have bought something LHD, cheap and probably French, unless the local Garagiste is experienced with BMWs. If the BM breaks down on you, most parts will be the same as for an LHD BMW, but some will not, and may be a pain in the backside to obtain, unless you're prepared to source them yourself from the UK.

In rural France you're never very far from a Peugeot/Citroen or Renault dealer, or a garagiste who knows all about them, but other marques' representation can be thin on the ground.

Thanks

Initially I was also thinking along those lines...and even thinking probably a diesel. The problem was when I looked at prices for secondhand cars in France they seemed much higher than here. Also although diesel is much cheaper ultimately once there the car won't be doing huge mileages to make the fuel cost differential such an issue.

I'm not too bad on the 'old spanners' myself ( http://www.bmwclassics.co.uk )and what I can't fix myself I'll have to give to the local BMW garage to do.

If I can't get all of this sorted out though and have a re-think I may have a very nice BMW E39 525i Touring up for sale soon!

Many thanks again.