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Yes. It is the car that is insured but you do have to say whether anyone under the age of 25, I think it is, will be driving it. Obviously the insurance will be even higher than usual if that is the case.

The car is insured but as to who drives it it depends on the policy really. I think that it used to be anyone could drive(and may still be in the vast majority of cases). However cheaper car insurance is starting to come in here and when we managed to get a much cheaper policy for our car for this year the drawback (if you consider it that) was that it was only the named drivers that could drive.

I personally would avoid the likes of AXA and SARA - they're the big players in insurance here and have dominated the market for years. However we've found them to be significantly more expensive. The policy we ended up with was almost half the cost of AXA. When my boyfriend went to end one of his policies with AXA (we've got 2 cars, a truck and a motorbike - oh and his son's scooter!) it was blatantly obvious that they were starting to get a bit panicky about people going elsewhere. In an effort to deter him the AXA man pointed out that if we went with someone else and didn't tell the whole truth on the application form then we wouldn't necessarily be covered by our insurance!! Not sure if he was implying that my boyfriend had previously been untruthful on his form or if it was accepted practice to be a little hazy with the truth at AXA!!

Also I just wouldn't go with them on principle now - you have to give one month's notice if you want to cancel your insurance before the start of the next year. They sent a reminder that the next year's insurance was due and dated it for a month and a few days before the expiry of the policy. However they didn't post it until about 2 days before the expiry date :mad: Thereby relying on people to forget, as we did in that case.

I'm afraid I can't remember off hand who we've actually got the insurance with now but a few people on the forum have recommended Direct Line in the past so I'd start with them and then take it from there.

[QUOTE=alex and lyn]In Italy is it true that the car is insured and anyone can drive it.[/QUOTE]

Remember though that the "usual" policy here is really only of use for third party risks, and, medical cover, you should check on the medical cover side of things, that the driver is covered, as, frequently only the passengers have medical cover and they want a separate payment to cover the drivers costs... :rolleyes:

I recently got ½ûÂþÌìÌà insurance, and was told as long as the driver had a license with him/her then they are covered on my policy. I could give you the name of the company but not until tommorow. (the document is in the car and my friend has borrowed it as she is struggling to get hers insured!)
I tried to get a quote from direct line.it and after going round in circles, faxing documents, sending them again because they lost them 3 times, I gave up.
You never get to speak to the same person twice and they have finally after 6 months sent me a written quote, which is E500 more than the one I got on the phone.
Anyway in the end I got a good price and I can pay every 6 months.
If you have no claims bonus on your uk policy you need the document it will reduce your premium considerably.

As we found to our cost last night when insuring our first car....we needed our UK insurance documents to prove our no-claims . We didn't have them and as we had to have car for today ,it cost us a lot extra.

They have told us though that if we take them to them when we need to renew in 6 months time, they will change the contract ...we will see...in the meantime, we will be shopping around.

Just for the record ..they wanted 900 Euros for a year on a 6 year old Renault Clio....3rd party only ....NOT Fire and Theft !!!!

I have no doubt we have been 'done' .....but it was a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea...renewing the carhire or paying the premium ....kinda balanced itself out in the end.

Oh and by the way , despite being told we didn't need it....when we went to the office to transfer the ownership...we did need our Residency Certificate !!!!!

Ouch! That's very expensive. Third party car insurance is relatively cheap in Spain compared to the UK and I was hoping it would be the same in Italy.

Does anyone know a good insurance company that's less expensive?

[QUOTE=alex and lyn]Oh and by the way , despite being told we didn't need it....when we went to the office to transfer the ownership...we did need our Residency Certificate !!!!![/QUOTE] I have bought 3 cars here and have never had to show a residency certificate because I had my carta d'identità. I am sure though that if someone does not have the CdI they would have to show valid ID and another type of proof of residency.

yes...you are correct Cristina...it was either ID Card ( which we still haven't got !!! :rolleyes: ...can't find time to get photos !!!! :o ) or Residency certificate.

I got my best price from Aurora--www.auroraassicurazioni.it
Its apparently priced on engine size, so although my landrover is 18yrs old its 490 euros for 6 months.
My first quote came in at 1500 and second 2000 euros so it is wise to shop around!

I checked out my insurance on confused.com for my Zafira here in Uk and found rather than the £388 (fully comp) renewal quote I'd received, confused.com searched 96 insurance co's and found at least 10 cheaper with the same excess, now paying £255, isn't there a simillar thing on ½ûÂþÌìÌà Internet using a search web site.

regarding insurance...there is no competitive quoting system here and your uks proof of no claims will not relate to the bonus/malus system here to much of a degree... because the letter you get at the time you terminate your uk insurance quotes percentages not years and the bonus/malus relates to numbers of years so if you have max no claims and no proof that you had never had an accident in the last ten years it will not translate to max no claims here....

they tend to start you off on bonus / malus 8 ...sort of midway... the major problem is to make sure you buy a car with a small engine if costs of around e800 per year are going to be a problem for you...this is the easiest way of keeping costs down....

the level of insurance is pitifal... and as someone has said make sure you take out the extra part for the driver because it is not within standard policies

despite paying all this money there are very few claims made to any insurance companies because it would make a scandalous and absurd cost already go even higher... so unless the police are involved you usually all pay out of your own pocket...

i felt some sympathy the other day for someone living in naples whose four cars in a year had been destroyed by flash floods.... i mean how do you afford to keep buying them ... it also amazes me that someone driving around in the latest model car carries this same third party insurance... it really makes little sense...however there is no real alternative... you just have to pay up and hope...

there are some deals here if you are buying new of guarantees and insurance paid for three years... third party... and they also offer interest rates of around 2-3 per cent over a couple of years...occaisionally you even get zero interest deals.... which considering the cost of paying your own insurance might work out to be a good deal....

My UK no claims document stated I had 9 yrs 65% no claims and it made a huge difference to my premium so may be it depends on who you are insured with.

its that nine years bit that makes the diference...like you i have max no claims....even protected in 30 years never making a claim ...but in 30 years always using insurance brokers to find that yers best option... so have had insurance from several companies ...some ... the max no claims always being passed on but not the years in the exchange of info... therefore no proof for the italian system...

as regards competitive rates....if you live here the italians have just had the liberlisation of operator info services by telephone forced on them by the eu...the result sveral different companies that for some strange reason all take 2 mins 15 sec to get you the phone number you are looking for and charge e4.5 or so for doing so.... the insurance companies are under and have been investigated here for providing overpriced and non pertinent insurance ....there is no alternative to the very lowest form of insuance cover that ia legal.... they have been found to be in contravence of all european company operating procedures as regards protective and pricing policies and it has been agreed to liberalise and open this sector.... a long time ago....

the same applies to the banks here.... and as most people know the head of the bank of italy is a virtual laughing stock...but even more so italy for not being able to sack him.... his employment is guaranteed and indeed he then passes on by right to be a senator and can then nominate five of his best mates to join him.... the banking system here has fixed rates agreed by all of them ...non competative practices ...and rules which exclude competition from other outside banks to be able to either take over or operate fully here

you will find that all service sector industries operate on a fixed pricing system ...with no competition... and definitely no customer service regulations...

so you just get used to it and join in with all your neighbours in just gritting your teeth and paying up.... you can then join them in spending half your life complaining about it whilst knowing nothing will ever change...

.... a neighbour of mine just had to renew his licence...it meant a day off work to visit asl ... seventy euro to pay... visit to the post office and tabac to get the stamp..... all that and a day lost from what is a shorter holiday allowance here than in the uk...and the knowledge he has to do it again in ten years...

... its all just part of the game here and you do get used to it.... funnily enough because the uk is not in the euro currency system the tend to think it isnt in europe....they might well find if they did look in a bit more depth the uk applies more of the rules of free european access and competition and most probably has less cases pending against it than most of the so called european nations within the euro zone... i presume the french are the worst they always are... but i think italy might well have signed up all treaties but very rarely applies any of the rules on its domestic companies ... or even rights of its citizens...

what you have too remember here that the communists were very powerful after the war... and the system has been maintained by protective close shop practices.... it suits the middle classes also ...the magistrates and judiciary run the country in a sense and changes are hard to achieve...like the present leader or not he has forced thru some changes.... one important one recently was allowing people to buy cars without using a notary...saving time and money....

there have been several battles between unions and the present government... but still companies like al italia are brought to their knees by over staffed and ineficient work.... and are still being bailed out by government help... fiat should have gone the way of most uk car companies by now but the present man in charge is very powerful and it still continues...

their prefered choice of solving these problems is to try and ban competitve imports ...which used to be easy...however now with eu free trade rules national companies are suffering... al italia wanted all low cost airlines to be made to charge the same as them... because their ticket prices were too low...

meanwhile every month we have strikes ...last weekend journalists... during the week trains and buses and i think we have the commune staff going on strike soon.... they shut cities to traffic every so often because of the pollution levels.. instead of making car testing compulsory every year...the test is a joke every two years and is more than easily passed providing you know the service station ...the worst culprits in many cities being the older bus fleets billowing out clouds of smoke....

.... there is a very big and real fear here that with the privitisation of water that syndicates will invest and the water will become unsafe and expensive....so liberlisation is not as easy to accomplish safely as in many other countries... they ave already taken control of the industrial waste handling here and in years to come tax payers will be picking up the clean up bills for all the illegal dumping...

so what do you do... you learn to live with it as most italians do... small pressure groups are founded and dissapear... overwhelmed really.... they do try...last year a new law was introduced to protect domestic animals...microchips ..etc.... you could do it free...to try and make owners keep their dogs beyond the summer holidays...when they are traditionally kicked out on the streets... a good law one might have thought... however the solution to dog boarding costs is to do away with them... a favorite motorist pastime here seems to be running felines and canines over... maybe you get points for it... or nuisance dogs are poisoned...

the thing is once you have been here a while you learn to live the italian way...am not saying go out and run a dog over...but you just learn to ignore the bad and apeciate the good.... you have to realise that it is no longer the uk or many of the northern european countries this is a different culture and despite all the bad parts can still be a pleasant place to live providing you are willing to ignore the worst parts of a culture that still has a lot of growing to do

[QUOTE=will] I wonder if ½ûÂþÌìÌà public are not too resigned about such matters??.....too deferential perhaps??......would be a scandal in the UK[/QUOTE]

Some generalisations here that I would have thought beneath you Will - I am surprised.

[QUOTE=sdoj]Some generalisations here that I would have thought beneath you Will - I am surprised.[/QUOTE]

BUT, they did pose a question which produced a fascinating reply...

First off I apologise to everyone because this has nothing to with the actual thread but serves to illustrate a point

[QUOTE=sdoj]Some generalisations here that I would have thought beneath you Will - I am surprised.[/QUOTE]

Dear sdoj please try and avoid commenting about others directly. You can have made your point just as well by saying "I think that X is a generalisation and the real situation is different".

As you can imagine people have different tolerance levels and its best not to try and test them too much by direct remarks.

Also the only reason I am making this comment publicly is because its not only sdoj who does this...

Hi there all, this is my first post so please forgive the waffling. We've just bought in Puglia, (Martina Franca), and wanted to buy a relative cheap second-hand car to leave down there. Any advice or info?

Hi
It's a bit of a nightmare whichever way you do it. Search some of the subjects that i've posted on this as I asked a similar question recently and got some good advice from various members. I have a UK registered left hand drive car in Calabria and all I do is insure it in this country as an extra vehicle on my current policy for the time that I use it. It's currently taxed and MOT'd but of course it has to come back to the UK once a year to renew the MOT. I thought about registering/taxing/insuring it as ½ûÂþÌìÌà but it costs around 600 Euro to register plus another 250ish Euro if you cannot provide all the car's technical details that they require (chances are you won't be able to unless you can get it from the manufacturer). Then you've got ½ûÂþÌìÌà insurance to pay etc, etc and, I'm not sure on this but you may need a Code Fiscale?
Mine's going to stay UK registered and come back once a year full of food & wine!!

hello,

does anyone know of an ½ûÂþÌìÌà motor insurance company that are particularly easy to deal with. I speak basic ½ûÂþÌìÌà but my insurance speak is not up to scratch. Also, I want to insure a UK reg vehicle.

Any advice would be really appreciated,
many thanks