Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Reduced coverage on ex-Hiscox insurance Renewal

Footman James offer this - it is limited to 90 days, but that's 90 days per trip and no limit to the number of trips. Not sure if that's any good. Also no idea about garage regs but mine is not garaged.

The garage clause has been recently introduced and is based on the value of the car. From memory the threshold is about £35k so most M3Ws will now be above this. I haven't investigated but think this may only apply to our classic car type policies. If you can get a regular car insurance then it presumably won't have a garage clause but could well be more expensive.

At my last renewal I tried about 5 insurers only 3 of whom quoted and all had the garage clause. One was about double Headley/Finch and G&W who were within £20 so I stayed with G&W.

Wilson,
Thanks to brexit things are tightening up, if you are uk resident you can only spend 90 days in 180 in the eu, so most insurance will follow suit. There are exceptions but good luck finding one for a 3w, I found a 12 month broker but he wouldn’t touch the 3w.
Apparently a uk car is allowed to stay in France for up to a year, (remaining road legal in the uk), but not it’s uk owner!

My french insurance (3w now french registered) is about 600€ and in the small print it states over 35k value it must be garaged and have an immobiliser!

I read recently of a brit with a carte de sejour ( so obviously a french resident) driving his uk registered car from Plymouth ferry into France, french customs noticed and asked if he was importing the car as he is not allowed to own a uk car.

I have a long stay visa which allows me to stay in France for 6 months.

Wilson

I would expect insuring a car for use for long periods in a different country to be as specialist as insuring a M3W. Finding the overlap must be quite difficult - I would try the insurers of supercars who are more likely to have a similar conundrum - e.g. with houses in Kensington and Monaco!

I thought you could only use a non EU registered car for upto 6 months in any 12 month period in the EU if you are resident outside the EU. I know the rules do vary slightly from country to country. When I worked in Ireland on secondment my UK registered car had to be returned back to the UK after 6 months as the UK Company insurers would not insure its use beyond that 6 months. I had to get a Irish registered company car after the 6 months even though I was non domiciled in Ireland. I presume that the insurance has now changed to 3 months in any 6 months period to reflect the maximum period you can stay if not an EU resident.

The Morgan is off the road in secure storage from October to May every year, so it is only used for 6 months in any year. There are many UK resident French home owners like me, who have 6 month visas to stay over three months at their house. French property taxes are very high, especially in the south of France PACA region, so if you only stay three months that would be well over €1000 per month just in property taxes. Mine are about €4600 per annum.

Wilson

So you may unfortunately now have a quite unique insurance problem, I always put my cars in storage on a specific storage policy as RTA (Road Traffic Act) insurance may have conditions applied eg with regards to access to keys, which if left with the storage company to maintain it or with the vehicle may invalidate the RTA insurance. I've learnt that from experience having had my car plus 15 other owners cars stolen whilst in storage, every other car was on RTA insurance and mine was on a specific storage policy and only I got paid out because of the key clause. So I would be looking for an Insurer that can switch your policy between a 6 month RTA and 6 month storage policy, a broker that deals with car storage maybe able to point you in the right direction.

Finch to give them due credit moved the renewal over to their private clients department, where an underwriter (like I used to be) can give an individualised quotation. The have granted me 180 days EU coverage per annum at a relatively modest additional premium, which suits me just fine and it is now all paid and the paperwork in course of preparation. I am perfectly happy to buy separate storage insurance for any other period it is in France but not in use on public highways. My M3W is by some considerable margin, the lowest value car in this storage, which has various classic Ferraris, Aston Martins and Bugatti's in it, so it is very carefully looked after. Considerable relief on my part as I was looking at being uninsured in two days time.

Wilson

PS Have others noticed the TM website to be somewhat unresponsive today. I have a fibre optic 500+ mbps connection, so it is not me unless it is a DNS issue. W.

Wilson,

Really pleased to read you are now sorted out albeit at the last minute. No more removing wheels..
Enjoy your summer now and rides with the grandchildren

Yes I have found the site slow today.