A Desk In The Sun

First, a reminder about one of those things you ought to do before you leave the UK. Get a letter from your British insurance company confirming how many years no-claims bonus you are entitled to. Foreign insurance companies’ quotes offer substantial no-claims discounts and it would be a shame to miss out.

As in the UK, the web offers the best way to shop around for auto insurance quotes overseas. Language feels as if it’s the biggest barrier when you’re trying to get the best price for your motor insurance. But the internet offers ways round that too.

If you’re looking for a deal in France, for example, try typing “French car insurance” or “car insurance France” into Google, Yahoo or another search engine. The results at the top of the list will probably be from insurance companies and brokers with an English language service. Any area with a large British community is likely to have at least one ex-pat insurance broker.

Using an English-speaking insurance agent could, however, leave you feeling that you may be losing out on the best deals because they’re only available on the internet in the native language of your new country. But the web offers a way round this problem too. Try using Google’s language tools or Babelfish to translate the parts of the insurance company’s website that you don’t understand. It’s not that difficult.

When I wanted to insure my new motorcycle I looked around and found that Linea Directa, the Spanish arm of Direct Line in the UK, was offering a discount of 20% to online applicants. I duly filled in the form, including my nationality, in order to get a quote. Then I left it.

A couple of days later I received a call from an English-speaking insurance salesman who pointed out that I’d made a small mistake on the online form. But the quote he gave me included the 20% discount for online applications.

Perhaps I could have persuaded the salesman in the English-speaking department to knock off the same amount from my motorcycle insurance policy. But I wouldn’t have known the concession was available if I hadn’t looked at the insurance company’s Spanish language website.

Finally, here are a couple of points that may be peculiar to Spain, but I’d really be interested to hear if there are similar quirks in other countries’ motoring laws. 

In order for your Spanish insurance documents to be in order you have to be able to produce not only the relevant parts of the policy, but also the bank receipt to prove you’ve paid. This isn’t just a matter of theory either. Certainly, the Guardia Civil here are in the habit of setting up fundraising roadblocks purely to check peoples’ papers.

The other thing which caught me out was the way all types of insurance premiums are paid. I didn’t realise when I first took out motor insurance that I’d actually started and signed a direct debit amongst all the other papers.

At the end of the first year after receiving the renewal notice I shopped round and found a substantially better deal. So I signed the papers and paid for a year’s fully-comprehensive insurance with the new company. Then, on the same day, both insurance companies took their premiums from my bank account pushing me into overdraft.

This shouldn’t have been a major problem. In Spain you’re allowed to cancel direct debits even after the payment has left your account. Unfortunately there’s a small charge for this. At the time, this left me confused and tearing my hair out. Every time I tried to cancel the payment online an error message came up in Spanish. Even when I translated the words from Spanish into English the message was meaningless.

In the end I worked out that if I put sufficient cash into my bank account to make sure I was at least 3 euros in credit I could then cancel the direct debit. And that was all there was to it. I kept expecting some comeback from the insurance company that had told me I needed to give at least six weeks notice to cancel one of their motor insurance policies.

Has anybody had any similar experiences or, indeed, can they add anything to this page on international car and motorcycle insurance. My only experience is in Spain, but I’d love to know what the situation is like in other countries.