timabob Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 This topic has been covered on the forum in the past, but when searching before we imported our Hymer, I noticed there was no up to date advice on this area. I know many people import motorhomes from Germany and Belgium. Some can get their dealer to drive the Motorhome to the port on the dealers insurance and many others drive theirs on German Export plates, which only provide 3rd Party insuance. With a valuable motorhome to pick up I felt nervous about driving it with only 3rd party insurance and so I found the name of Assurantiekantoor Alessie on one of the forums from a few years ago. They were supposed to be a Dutch insurance broker who could get comprehensive insurance for a motorhome being driven on export plates. I can confirm that this broker does still exist and was able to sort out comprehensive insurance for us. It is worth noting that the policy is actually issued by Lloyds of London!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 timabob - 2015-06-29 1:34 PM This topic has been covered on the forum in the past, but when searching before we imported our Hymer, I noticed there was no up to date advice on this area. I know many people import motorhomes from Germany and Belgium. Some can get their dealer to drive the Motorhome to the port on the dealers insurance and many others drive theirs on German Export plates, which only provide 3rd Party insuance. With a valuable motorhome to pick up I felt nervous about driving it with only 3rd party insurance and so I found the name of Assurantiekantoor Alessie on one of the forums from a few years ago. They were supposed to be a Dutch insurance broker who could get comprehensive insurance for a motorhome being driven on export plates. I can confirm that this broker does still exist and was able to sort out comprehensive insurance for us. It is worth noting that the policy is actually issued by Lloyds of London!! Excellent news, and well done! Can you provide more details, please? I.e. who was the actual Lloyds underwriter, for how long the insurance was valid, what language was it written in, and roughly what was the cost? I'm just puzzled that a Dutch broker is able to arrange f/c insurance (or top-up insurance) through Lloyds of London on a German (or other EU) registered vehicle owned by a UK resident, when it seems no-one else can do this. I'm not doubting or knocking, just genuinely puzzled. If they can, indeed, issue fully legally compliant insurance in this way, they are solving a major problem for the many would-be personal importers who are put off by the risks of driving on third party only insurance, and deserve to be widely known in the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted June 29, 2015 Author Share Posted June 29, 2015 The Dutch Company are just the Brokers. The insurers are HBA Limited Auto Global Solutions. They have a London telephone number and policy is underwritten by the White Oak Underwriting Agency 9620 at Lloyds of London. I insured 82,000 Euros with an excess of 5000 Euros at a premium of 290 Euros for 30 days. The reason I was able to find this insurance was that people have these brokers in the past, but as I said nothing has been mentioned on the forums for some years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted June 29, 2015 Author Share Posted June 29, 2015 BTW all correspondence with the agent was in English and the Insurance Policy is written in English. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Well done! and thanks for sharing:-) : http://www.alessie.com/ Personally would not bother as risk negligible IMO. But another choice welcome, particularly for those of a nervous disposition..Dealer I have used on last 2 imports offers 5 day fully comp export insurance these days. I have an old school friend who is a broker, I could always ask him if people interested. as they are special risk consultants So you can drive yourself. (example: Dusseldorf to Calais 4 hrs) Get dealer to drive it to port. normally free Belgium - a cost from Germany get it driven back on a flat back trailer. most expensive option but no mileage accrued if thats important to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Thank you very much for that further information. Amazing, these Dutch! :-) They seem to be able to get insurance to travel pretty much all over Europe, including all the countries from which the UK insurers run a country mile! Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted June 29, 2015 Author Share Posted June 29, 2015 Unfortunately our dealer couldn't offer fully comp insurance. Risk is negligible, but with 80k Euro product, it only takes a blow out or something else unforeseen event to be financially catastrophic. But as you say, I'm probably of a nervous disposition ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 timabob - 2015-06-29 5:06 PM Unfortunately our dealer couldn't offer fully comp insurance. Risk is negligible, but with 80k Euro product, it only takes a blow out or something else unforeseen event to be financially catastrophic. But as you say, I'm probably of a nervous disposition ;-) Bless...how many blow outs have you had? :-D Only pulling your leg...... but there have always been other options surprised the dealer did not offer them. they employ drivers all the time to move stock around... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 I was on the verge of importing a used MH a month or so ago and I was told by the Agent (Bundesvan) that comprehensive insurance could be arranged via a company (or maybe brokerage) in Belgium - cost £300 for 14 days, so expensive but at least he cover culd be found. I rang my own insurer (LV, we have several policies with them) and complianed about their refusal to cover until it was on UK soil. They were very helpful and informative. There is an EU Directive which prohibits insurers from issuing cover for vehicle which are not in their home country. I assume that the purpose of this Directive is to avoid the complications of cross-border insurance cover, perhaps for purposes of the police being able to check on cover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted June 29, 2015 Author Share Posted June 29, 2015 I would be very suspicious about the EU directive mentioned by LV, such a restriction would fundamentally undermine one of the key tenets of the EU - free movement of goods. Also the free sale of services across borders (insurers prevented from offering cover in other markets). I think it is much more likely that the market is so small no British insurers can be bothered to offer it. Alessie on the other hand specialise in insuring vehicles all over the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 timabob - 2015-06-29 7:53 PM I would be very suspicious about the EU directive mentioned by LV, such a restriction would fundamentally undermine one of the key tenets of the EU - free movement of goods. Also the free sale of services across borders (insurers prevented from offering cover in other markets). I think it is much more likely that the market is so small no British insurers can be bothered to offer it. Alessie on the other hand specialise in insuring vehicles all over the world. Makes sense.....what did you buy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 We bought a Hymer B588. It's sitting on the drive waiting for the DVLA to do their stuff! While it's been sitting there we've been equipping it. We've had so long to "equip" it I'm worried by the time the DVLA paperwork comes through it will be overweight :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 timabob - 2015-06-30 9:19 AM We bought a Hymer B588. It's sitting on the drive waiting for the DVLA to do their stuff! While it's been sitting there we've been equipping it. We've had so long to "equip" it I'm worried by the time the DVLA paperwork comes through it will be overweight :-D The fun starts with the DVLA once you get the van home..if anything could be described as not fit for service its them! :-S They look nice vans...what was the MIRO..are you hoping to use it @ 3500kg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 We've got Nick Legg from Bundesvan doing the DVLA paperwork for us so should be right first time. MIRO about 3375kg with all the extras we've had included, so will not be trying to run under 3500 kg. It is on the optional ALKO maxi chassis so it's rated up to 4250kg. I was only joking about being overweight. It just seems the longer it sits on our drive the more things we decide to put in it!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 should be fine @ 4250 :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 I've had a chat to HBA (now merged with Lime Street Insurance) who are Lloyds brokers, but who also deal direct with the public (most seem not to). Their insurances are in two parts. One is a third party only insurance that covers the legal requirements for the EU and many countries beyond, including the US, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and central and southern America. The other is a separate international insurance covering the vehicle itself against fire, theft, vandalism and accidental damage, but excluding any third part element. (The concept is a bit like caravan insurance, where the third party cover while the caravan is being towed is provided under the tow-car insurance, with damage to the caravan itself covered separately under its own policy.) The two insurances together, although though not linked, provide the rough equivalent of f/c cover for the vehicle. In a road accident, therefore, it is likely two claims would need to be made. The motorhoming interest grew from people wishing to get insurance for the Silk Route and other trans-continental journeys. This was augmented by demand for international vehicle insurances from the likes of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development, the United Nations, and the African Development Bank. As timabob says, the policies are underwritten by Lloyds of London, and are in English. It wasn't entirely clear to me what, if any, advantage would be gained by dealing through the Dutch broker, although the two firms clearly have a long-standing association, and HBA expressed great respect for the them, and their multi-lingual talents. Since export insurance seem only available in Germany (widely third party only), anyone who wants to obtain better than third party cover, written in a language they understand, might find it well worthwhile making an enquiry. But so too might anyone wishing to import from elsewhere in Europe (especially France or Belgium), where temporary export insurances (third party only or otherwise) seem unobtainable, which has hitherto been more or less impossible unless the dealer will drive to the port. The package can be obtained for varying durations for up to one year, and as I understood my conversation is fully valid in the UK, so the vehicle can be legally driven while it is being re-registered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 Thanks for that Brian. I shall bear that in mind for the next import (not for the next 2 years at least!) It is very difficult to find information about insurance while importing. I did a huge amount of googling and looking at forums before I found Alessie, but never came across HBA. Their insurance products for this sort of thing are not well advertised. Hopefully people searching in future will come across this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Brian a link would be useful? As they are the initials of my friends firm....might be a coincidence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 timabob - 2015-06-30 12:47 PM Thanks for that Brian. I shall bear that in mind for the next import (not for the next 2 years at least!) It is very difficult to find information about insurance while importing. I did a huge amount of googling and looking at forums before I found Alessie, but never came across HBA. Their insurance products for this sort of thing are not well advertised. Hopefully people searching in future will come across this thread. I think you did spectacularly well! I thought I'd sucked the well dry when importing in 2005, 2007, and again in 2013, when I looked for ways to get import insurance, even checking the Silk Road site for info/links links, but drew a complete blank. Hey, ho! Never stop learning, do you! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 Thanks. Even Nick Legg, who I think has been importing for many years professionally was unaware that such insurance was possible. I notice from StuartO's post however that Nick is now making clients aware of this insurance. He said Belgian, because my initial search indicated Alessie may be based in Belgium, but I, and Nick, now know its the Netherlands. I'll pass the info on the UK insurance company on to Nick at Bundesvan. He drives his imports on third party plates and has never had a problem, but some clients may feel more comfortable paying 300 euros for that extra security. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 JudgeMental - 2015-06-30 2:05 PM Brian a link would be useful? As they are the initials of my friends firm....might be a coincidence As Brian said, the HBA insurance-related company was acquired by Lime Street Insurance Brokers Ltd Information/contact details here http://www.hba.eu.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Brian Kirby - 2015-06-30 12:38 PM I've had a chat to HBA (now merged with Lime Street Insurance) who are Lloyds brokers, but who also deal direct with the public (most seem not to). Their insurances are in two parts. One is a third party only insurance that covers the legal requirements for the EU and many countries beyond, including the US, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and central and southern America. The other is a separate international insurance covering the vehicle itself against fire, theft, vandalism and accidental damage, but excluding any third part element. (The concept is a bit like caravan insurance, where the third party cover while the caravan is being towed is provided under the tow-car insurance, with damage to the caravan itself covered separately under its own policy.) The two insurances together, although though not linked, provide the rough equivalent of f/c cover for the vehicle. In a road accident, therefore, it is likely two claims would need to be made. The motorhoming interest grew from people wishing to get insurance for the Silk Route and other trans-continental journeys. This was augmented by demand for international vehicle insurances from the likes of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development, the United Nations, and the African Development Bank. As timabob says, the policies are underwritten by Lloyds of London, and are in English. It wasn't entirely clear to me what, if any, advantage would be gained by dealing through the Dutch broker, although the two firms clearly have a long-standing association, and HBA expressed great respect for the them, and their multi-lingual talents. Since export insurance seem only available in Germany (widely third party only), anyone who wants to obtain better than third party cover, written in a language they understand, might find it well worthwhile making an enquiry. But so too might anyone wishing to import from elsewhere in Europe (especially France or Belgium), where temporary export insurances (third party only or otherwise) seem unobtainable, which has hitherto been more or less impossible unless the dealer will drive to the port. The package can be obtained for varying durations for up to one year, and as I understood my conversation is fully valid in the UK, so the vehicle can be legally driven while it is being re-registered. UPDATE! I now have a clarification on what can, and cannot, be insured. The only European country for which a green card cannot be issued is Kosovo. You would have to buy insurance at the Kosovan border. For UK registered vehicles, the insurance has very limited validity while in UK - basically only a few days front and rear of a foreign trip to allow reasonable transit to and from a port. You would have to cancel your UK insurance to co-incide with commencement of the international policy, and then re-insure in UK as soon as you return. (It is not permitted to have the same risk insured simultaneously with two different insurers, so you can't run both in parallel) But, once outside UK, the insurance can cover almost anywhere else in the world - with obvious exceptions such as war zones etc! The same would be true for a foreign registered vehicle kept in its country of registration. This insurance is aimed specifically at "foreign" vehicles (i.e. vehicles not in their country of registration). OTOH, when importing a vehicle to UK (which I guess is what will interest most on here) it will be temporarily registered, and issued with temporary export plates. This temporary registration does not count for insurance purposes, and so it can be driven both in its country of temporary registration and elsewhere on the HBA/Lime Street insurance. As I understand it, this applies to any country for which the green card is valid, so to the whole of the EU and well beyond. In the case of Germany alone it is possible to obtain third party only insurance with the export plates, and possibly f/c insurance from some dealers. The obvious difficulty with the German insurances is that they are written in German, so non-German speakers have only the dealer's word for what is covered/excluded. The HBA/Lime Street insurance package, however, provides cover until the vehicle is registered in the UK, so includes the whole of the journey from the dealer (on export plates) to your home, plus any other trips you may make before UK registration is completed. As in the copied post above, this provides international third party insurance, with accidental damage top-up (which is the approximate equivalent of UK f/c insurance), all written in English so that you can understand exactly what is, and is not, covered. I am not entirely clear whether the accidental damage top-up can be obtained in conjunction with the temporary export insurance that comes with with the German export plates, and I don't know whether the German export plates can be obtained minus the insurance, or how a German dealer might react to a third party policy written in English. These points would need to be clarified with HBA. I didn't press them further, as I was not making a serious enquiry. Anyone wishing to explore this further should contact either Mateus Dos Santos (Mat) at HBA on 0207 265 7467, to whom I spoke and who is very helpful, or Mrs. Maria M. Alessie, Assurantiekantoor Alessie, Eliotplaats 174, 3068 VL Rotterdam, Netherlands. Tel. +31-10-4555946. Fax. +31-10-4555948. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015 Thank you Brian. Very comprehensive. My reading of the policy wording is that it will run concurrently with German 3rd party insurance, but as you say what will happen in practise between the English underwriters and their German counterparts where liability is not clear, is anyones guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 timabob - 2015-07-01 7:21 PM Thank you Brian. Very comprehensive. My reading of the policy wording is that it will run concurrently with German 3rd party insurance, but as you say what will happen in practise between the English underwriters and their German counterparts where liability is not clear, is anyones guess. I've always found the Silk Route motorhome club to be the know alls of shipping vans and insurance. I thought I'd read somewhere that Nick Legg had retired and sold his business, is this not correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timabob Posted July 2, 2015 Author Share Posted July 2, 2015 My understanding is that he has sold his business, but from talking to the new owners at the Peterborough Show I think he has agreed to help out for a few months or so. He has certainly been active in helping me with my import, but that was probably because I was an awkward so and so and wanted to do everything in a non-standard way, including getting more or less comprehensive insurance!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.