Living abroad & Irish Insurance

Stky10

I've built up a decent level of experience and NCB with Quinn-Direct. However now (and probably for the next few years at least) I live abroad within Europe. I'd like to keep some form of insurance on the go so that I don't lose all this in case I ever decide to move back home again.

I was thinking that I might be able to get some sort of low mileage or low risk insurance for maybe a hundred euro or so even though I don't own a car in Ireland anymore. Q-D are having none of it. They want to charge me the full amount that I normally pay.

Are there any insurers that would do something like this that I can move to instead?. I'm guessing there are lots of people in the same situation, are they all letting their insurance lapse as well?

coylemj

Will you be driving in your new country? If so then you should probably get insurance with one of the pan-European insurance companies like Axa, Allianz or Aviva, that way you'll have some paperwork (i.e. NCB) to bring home with you when you return.

slinky2000

Can you not just cancel your insuracne or allow it to lapse and take your no claims with you? I've done it a few times now between ireland and the UK. I think NCB is valid for 5 years or soemthing.

Stky10

I won't be driving this year, but maybe/probably will be next year. I'll check if Axa/Allianz do car insurance here, and whether they take an NCB from abroad.

Cheers...

slinky2000

Quinn and 123.ie definitely do. I think they all will!

CiniO

Two solutions.

1. Buy a car in the country which you live in, and insure it using your current NCB.
When you come back, you show the proof that you were insured abroad. NCB from abroad is the same good as the one collected in Ireland.

2. You can try to keep your insurance in Ireland and suspend it. By this you will still collect NCB, but will pay only few % of the full premium. Only disadvantage is, that legally you need to have a car to have insurance on it. Maybe just buy some old banger, insure it and suspend insurance.

kdevitt

CiniO wrote: »

You can try to keep your insurance in Ireland and suspend it. By this you will still collect NCB, but will pay only few % of the full premium. Only disadvantage is, that legally you need to have a car to have insurance on it. Maybe just buy some old banger, insure it and suspend insurance.

You are required to pay the full premium up front, and then claim for the non-use rebate at the end of the insured period (75% with 123.ie)

My wife did this but had her policy cancelled on renewal by them as they said she needed to be living in the country to maintain her policy, they also refused to refund her off the road period.

I'm still insured on my cars but didn't get the rebate either! Don't have them declared off the road anymore and have friends using them now.

Break all ties

The problem is that many EU countries insure the car and not the driver. In some countries there is no such thing as a NCB.

When I moved to Bulgaria I re-registered my car and got insurance. When I went into the insurance office to get insurance all I was asked for was the registration document and how long would I like to be covered for 3,6 or 12 months. I was then given a price. Nothing asked about NCBs, previous experience etc. They didn't want to know.

Lemming

coylemj wrote: »

Will you be driving in your new country? If so then you should probably get insurance with one of the pan-European insurance companies like Axa, Allianz or Aviva, that way you'll have some paperwork (i.e. NCB) to bring home with you when you return.

FYI; Aviva in another country wont might not recognise your current Irish policy. I had fierce trouble getting a sane (and 230% higher is not sane by any definition of the word) fully comp. quote off Aviva UK despite my informing them that I was already an existing customer with NCB over 'n' years with Aviva.

keithclancy

Get a car thats take away for free.
Insure it
Dump it in a scrap yard
Keep paying insurance until you come back to Ireland.

Most companies in Europe will recognise your Irish NCB AFAIK, its the other way around thats the problem.

I managed to keep my 5 years NCB with Quinn on my Dutch Insurance.

Try and get TPO rather than TPF&T

dell1211

keithclancy wrote: »

Get a car thats take away for free.
Insure it
Dump it in a scrap yard
Keep paying insurance until you come back to Ireland.

Most companies in Europe will recognise your Irish NCB AFAIK, its the other way around thats the problem.

I managed to keep my 5 years NCB with Quinn on my Dutch Insurance.

Try and get TPO rather than TPF&T

Or cancel your insurance and renew only every 1years and 11months as your NCB wont expire until 2 years have lapsed with no insurance

Our man in Havana

That can be a little tricky if you are not in Ireland.

Personally I would prefer not to give the bloodsuckers any money If I was not living in Ireland.

keithclancy

dell1211 wrote: »

Or cancel your insurance and renew only every 1years and 11months as your NCB wont expire until 2 years have lapsed with no insurance

Yeh, you never know if they'll look for a driving license, proof of address or whatever.

Renewal is automatic and as long as you pay it they dont care.

Personally I didn't bother when I left, that was 4 years ago now and looking back i'd be p*ssed off if i'd paid for 4 years insurance on a non existant sh*theap

shedweller

To add to the annoyance factor i believe they will load your insurance if you have a claim abroad, even if you have never been in Ireland before. Fair enough you may think, but to conveniently ignore any NCB you may have after two years?

My reason for saying this is because an Australian worked with my wife a while back. She went to get insured in a car but it was found out that she made a claim in Australia a few years previously. It was only a break in so a side window was broken but she still got her premium loaded here.

Anyway, thats neither here nor there.

I was abroad for over two years and had an issue with losing my NCB upon my return. I had to prove, with a letter sent between insurance companies, that i had a NCB built up abroad. I went through a broker because they know the system far better than i do. It all worked out ok in the end.

keithclancy

shedweller wrote: »

To add to the annoyance factor i believe they will load your insurance if you have a claim abroad, even if you have never been in Ireland before. Fair enough you may think, but to conveniently ignore any NCB you may have after two years?

My reason for saying this is because an Australian worked with my wife a while back. She went to get insured in a car but it was found out that she made a claim in Australia a few years previously. It was only a break in so a side window was broken but she still got her premium loaded here.

Anyway, thats neither here nor there.

I was abroad for over two years and had an issue with losing my NCB upon my return. I had to prove, with a letter sent between insurance companies, that i had a NCB built up abroad. I went through a broker because they know the system far better than i do. It all worked out ok in the end.

True that.

I've heard of AXA for example accepting it.

But other Insurance companies won't accept it becuase its either written 'in foreign' or its for driving on the other side of the road.

Our man in Havana

And then you have the countries that don't issue NCBs.

Del2005

shedweller wrote: »

To add to the annoyance factor i believe they will load your insurance if you have a claim abroad, even if you have never been in Ireland before. Fair enough you may think, but to conveniently ignore any NCB you may have after two years?

My reason for saying this is because an Australian worked with my wife a while back. She went to get insured in a car but it was found out that she made a claim in Australia a few years previously. It was only a break in so a side window was broken but she still got her premium loaded here.

They also load for claims made on motorcycle or commercial policies yet most don't carry over NCBs.

OP
Only option is to buy a sh!t heap leave it on someone's private land and insure it TPO.

Our man in Havana

Which would be a serious waste of money.

CiniO

Our man in Havana wrote: »

Which would be a serious waste of money.

Not if you suspend that policy straight after obtaining it.
You pay the premium, but after all year, you get a refund of most of it (depending on insurance company usually between 85% to 95% refund).
They renew your insurance for next year, and suspend it again.

CiniO

keithclancy wrote: »

True that.

I've heard of AXA for example accepting it.

But other Insurance companies won't accept it becuase its either written 'in foreign' or its for driving on the other side of the road.

In 2007 I wanted to obtain my first car insurance in Ireland.
I already had few cars and also few insurance policies before in Poland between 2001 and 2007.
I had two claims - both for theft - in 2003. I got confirmation of period I was insured and any claims from my Polish insurers, and got it translated into English language by sworn translator. Provided it to Hibernian which was the insurer I chose then in Ireland, and they accepted it as 4 years NCB without any problems.

Funny thing is that at the moment I was trying to get insurance in Ireland with Hibernian, I still had my car in Poland insured. But Hibernian never asked about it.
Year later, when my friend wanted to do the same, they asked him to provide a proof from foreign insurer, that policy on which NCB was collected is cancelled now.
I assume it's because of stupid rule with Irish insurers that NCB can be used only on one policy at the time.

Grass between the tracks

I know a lad that fecked off to Russia and for some reason he has insurance on a car that was broken up and scrapped years ago. He only has the log book and plates.