I wonder if someone has experience with getting "provisional" insurance for a car before moving to Switzerland.

We are currently in Prague and have car insurance until July 28th. We obtained this Czech insurance provisionally when we were in France and then gave the insurance company all the details of the Czech car registration as soon as it was done. We will move to Geneva this summer and so we thought that we could do the same thing, i.e. obtain provisional Swiss insurance (with the temporary Czech plates they will put on the car before we leave) and then register the car in Switzerland when we arrive there. However, the response we have obtained so far seems to rule out this possibility. For example, on the telephone today, "Zuritel" at first said no problem, but then came back and said they couldn't give us "responsabilité civile" or public liability insurance.

Does anyone know if it is possible to obtain car insurance under these circumstances? We will come to Geneva at the end of June to look for an apartment, but it doesn't appear as though we would be able to import and then register the car until we have an address and actually move there, although I would be the first to admit to my ignorance of this whole procedure.

Many thanks.

Hello!! (I was instructed by the webmaster to say this).

I can't help you, sillietoe, so sorry, as I am looking for answers myself. Coming from Eastern Europe myself originally, it is amazing for me to see how little things work in the Western sector. Although I only spent three days in Switzerland in my whole life, it looks like a tough place to spend one's money.

Since the same used car costs about double in CH as in the USA, and since I live next to an East Coast USA sea port, I have decided to ship my car there for a period of less than one year (I am writing a book), then ship it right back here when I am finished. According to my calculations, I would be still saving about USD $15,000 on the deal. All I would need is the EU insurance coverage, which is something they do not offer here in the USA, since the USA is a different country than the EU and CH is.

Now, I used to associate Switzerland with boredom, cheese, chocolate, clocks, and insurance. But strike that last one. ZURICH and WINTERHUR just told me "forget about it, Yankee Boy! We only insure cars for those with 'working permits,'" or some such nonsense.

Heck, if this is "hospitality, Euro-style," perhaps someone should steer back them to some good olde-fashioned rudeness.

I probably won't be able to drive the car out of the port area (Rotterdam, NL) w/o the EU insurance in hand, so perhaps NL would be a better place to get this arranged than CH. It is just so funny that everything that could be done with relative ease on this side of the Pond is such a pain in the butt over there in the Old Continent.

In the 1950s, 60s, 70s Americans used to ship over the set of wheels for a grand Euro tour -- then ship it right back here again. Shipping it and using it there for less than a year apparently is still permitted by the EU and CH, it's just one cannot drive a car w/o insurance coverage (a good thing), and they won't sell you any unless you claim that you are a EU or CH citizen, which I definitely won't plan on being.

Years ago, it was easy to purchase third-party liability insurance in EU at local automobile club offices. Does anyone know if this is perhaps a possibilities, as the "big" Swiss insurers told to me to just forgetaboutit.

Hi Digibaba,

Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry if I can't help you much either. In our own case, it has become clear that we cannot expect to get insurance in Switzerland until our car has been imported. It appears that the general procedure is that you pass the border, take your car and other possessions to the customs, then you have to take your car for a "technical control", following which you can register it (get Swiss plates) and get insurance. Therefore, we have extended our Czech insurance through our very helpful Czech broker, "INSIA".

However, a user called Stephanwolf, said in a previous post of mine that "I importet a car form the US and drove it around with US plates for a year (so it was not registered here), but I called up an insurance agency and explained my situation and got insurance - have you tried that?" I don't know how he did this.

I have not lived in Switzerland yet, but, as you know, it is not part of the EU, although I believe is will become part of the Schengen area in November, which may facilitate certain things. The Schengen agreement allows for free passage across borders so that, for example, you no longer have to stop your car when you cross the border between the Czech Republic and Germany since the former became part of Schengen, last year I think it was.

I just mention this because I think you can drive a car registered elsewhere for a certain length of time, so perhaps if you are only there for a year, you might be able to find another solution. Can you not get an extension to your American insurance to allow you to drive around Europe for a while?

Let me finish by saying that as a "proper" Englishman, when I first arrived in New York, where I lived for 9 years, I thought New Yorkers were pretty rude, but in the end I did not want to leave! Switzerland does seem to be tightly regulated, so if they told you that they can't insure you if you don't have a work permit, it may be because this is the case, i.e. they may seem rude but they are just telling it like it is.

I hope someone else can provide you with some more practical advice.

Good luck.

While not recommending them in any way as I have never used them I know that these people provide the service you are looking for.

Hi,

Does anyone know an insurance company that would agree to insure a US car (with US number plates, not Swiss) for driving in Europe AND in Switzerland?

We are coming to Switzerland in July and kind of contemplating to bring the car with us (yes, I've tried to read all the emails about all the problems, etc.). We were thinking about driving for a few months or up to a year with US plates, and then change them to Swiss ones with appropriate modifications. The problem for us now is that we could not find a single insurance company (either US or Swiss) that would insure our car still with US number plates once it on the European turf. We called a few american companies, incl.Liberty Mutual, State Farm and a couple of insurers in Switzerland, but all of them told us they do not do that. Someone on the forum mentioned Geico, we have our current insurance with them. They first said that they would insure the car in Switzerland, but later backed off and said they would not.

So we are kind of at loss: even if the car is delivered to the door in Switzerland, we do not have insurance to drive it to the garage to make modifications and then to the inspection (temporary plates could be a solution?). But if we get the car delivered RORO to Germany, is there any way for us to drive it to Switzerland? Someone mentioned "foreign" plates, but I could not make out what they were.

It seems that we cannot drive until we get Swiss plates and we cannot get the Swiss plates because we need to drive to make the car compliant with Swiss requlations. Any advice?

Thank you very much in advance for all your patience and help.
piglet

As has been discussed elsewhere, you can get insurance from ADAC in Germany (and likely from their Swiss counterpart) to cover you for third party liability insurance while you are driving on your US plates. You will not be able to (or at least I do not know of a source) be able to get comprehensive insurance and so if your car is stolen or if you have an at fault crash you are **** out of luck.

If you ship your car into Bremerhaven (for example) and flew into Frankfurt, you could go to an ADAC office in Frankfurt or Bremen and get the insurance which would enable you to drive away from the port after clearing customs. Also, unless your car is a bit of a beater, do not do RORO... and do not under any circumstances pack stuff in your car if it goes RORO (unless you want to see the sailors wearing your kit on your next visit to Hamburg).

Thanks, Ratbert! The car is 2004 VW Passat, so it is not anything fancy, and we are the original owner. We are not very eager to do RORO, but for now the quotes for US-Bremenhaven is exactly 1/3 of the quote for US-Switzerland. We just felt that (perhaps) the part from Bremenhaven to Switzerland can be done cheaper on our own than 4-5K shippers want for that. But we really do not know... If anyone has any experience or info/tips about getting a car in Bremenhaven to drive to Switzerland, I would certainly appreciate it.

Thanks again for your help,
piglet

You've been given some good advice in this post and your previous one about the Passat. So mayhap the alarm bells should be ringing. If you are struggling for insurance cover, and what you could get is only 3rd party, depending on how long you plan to be over here and how many miles you plan to drive, would storing your car in the US and getting one here be an option. with 2nd hand prices reasonable, no import and conversion problems, no insurance hassle for comprehensive cover(especially with kid's on board), or service & repair issues, maybe it's worth considering?

Why not do US-Bremerhaven in a container, pick it up at the port and take a nice (albeit partially uninsured) drive to Switzerland? But if you do RORO (your Passat is a beater over here in the land of Aston Martins) anything you put in the car stands a better than 50/50 chance of being stolen.

Another thing you may not have considered is the considerable wait-time for a shipping date.

I totally agree....all this aggro for a PASSAT?!! If you're wedded to the brand why not pick up a secondhand one here:
http://www.autoscout24.ch/AS24Web/Se...4&lng=fra&wl=1

Perhaps the reason why you are having trouble finding an insurer in Europe to insure your vehicle is because, pursuant to the laws of most European countries, the country of risk for motor vehicles is the country of registration.

So if your vehicle is registered in the US, the insurance risk will be considered to be located in the US, even though the vehicle is physically located in Europe. A European insurer is unlikely to be able to insure your vehicle because they cannot insure risks located in the US (unless they have the insurance licence to do so).

On the other hand, a US insurer is perhaps unwilling to insure your vehicle for use in Europe because US motor vehicle insurance policies tend to have a geographical limit.

Actually, it is a rather complicated situation and unless an insurer is experienced in cross-border transactions, it would not consider insuring your vehicle.

It is unlikely that you will be able to drive your car in Germany or Switzerland unless you have a valid third party liability insurance. If you get pulled over by the police (which may be likely if you are driving with US plates) then you may be up for a fine and other problems.

Perhaps one option is to have the vehicle towed to the garage to have the modifications made, which will then make it easier for you to obtain insurance.

I have not heard of ADAC but if they can offer some sort of solution, you should look into it.

Thanks for all the replies. I am currently trying to figure out if ADAC will work for us (Zero knowledge of German does not help but I will persevere ).

Trying to justify my idea of shipping an old car (Passat Wagon, 2004, built in Germany for US):

We are not attached to the brand or the particular car. Even if it sounds a sacrilege to many people, we kind of do not care abt the type of cars we drive. The only requirements for them are to be reasonably safe, to carry all three or four of us + some stuff like a tent, skis, etc. w/out much of a problem, i.e. to be roomy. Passat Wagon fits the bill.

The Passat in question has only 30K miles on it and have 4w/d. I've looked on autoscout24.ch and some other swiss websites for used cars, an equivalent car costs around 28K-32K CHF.

We perhaps can get 20K-22K USD if we sell the car in US.

Our cost to bring our existing car:
shipping to Bremenhaven + port terminal fees (paid for by the company) 0 CHF
My husband flying to Bremenheaven and driving back the car ~1K CHF
Insurance by ADAC for a month ~1K-2K CHF
Modifications by the dealer (estimate) =<3K CHF
Hassle and inconvenience ? CHF

It seems that in monetary terms bringing the car from US to Switzerland is roughly the same as buying a used car in Switzerland and there is even a small slack. If we paid for shipping ourselves, that would add 3K USD.

I do not know how to value the hassle and inconvenience. From the forum, it seems that I have to put a lot of value on it, but I could not figure out what exactly the problems were. Most of the people hated to pay 2-3K CHF for just changing the lights, we would not like that too, of course. I've already incorporated it in the modifications.

Any tips, especially on some major expenses that I missed in my calculations, would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks a lot everyone for your help and patience,

piglet

PS I forgot to clarify that we are moving for good, or at least intend to.

Sell your car, buy one here.

I don't know ADAC however regular insurance *full casco* for car like yours is about 1'500 CHF/year - not a month - source comparis.ch - Zurich Insurance online quote.

I didn't see that first time around and I have to say it looks way too high. That might be the rate for the whole year... keep in mind it's only 3rd party liability.

The is a letter from the ADAC regarding insuring a foreign motorcycle. It is somewhat out of date so prices and contact data may have changed.

There is also a firm that I found online that will, apparently organize it for you. The info is for motorcycles, but they state that they will also organize car insurance for you. That might be your best bet.

@Cremebrulee; enjoy your dinner.

The ADAC has an excellent page (German only) regarding importing a car into Germany, although much of this will apply to import into Switzerland.

This part is what we are interested in:

and my translation:

So, in short, when you call ADAC, you are looking for their "Grenzversicherung fuer eine Fahrzeug mit amerikanischem Kennzeichen."

In order to get a Green Card insurance to travel through Europe you would have to apply to a European company. The USA is not part of the european agreement and therefore a U.S. insurers could not issue one. You'll find more information about Green Cards here and here.

why not to ask your insurance (US based ) to extend coverage to EU for a month - that's what normally you should do.

and if you want to bring car for good - you can 'rent' Swiss plates (when you have your residence permit or ZAR number assigned) for 60CHF/day which includes full insurance for your car for bringning it from anywhere to CH.

Sorry, that is, AFAIK, incorrect.