Hello friends,

Posting here because the Trip Paperwork section seems to get less responses (wonder why??).

We are heading to South America soon and although we are fully prepared to do the usual song and dance of finding the place to buy 3rd-party insurance before/at/after each border, mentions on here of travellers securing multi-country insurance ahead of travel have piqued our interest.

Does anyone have details of insurers who can offer this (it would have to be online, we start in Brazil)? Happy to do the homework on any lead provided and then report back.

Also, it would be really helpful to have an idea of the cost?

Thank you in advance!


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Further detail - if your answer is 'just buy the insurance at each border, it doesn't take that long/it's easy' - Yes! but for the reasons explained above + we have two bikes so it takes double the time + a recent example is travellers wasting hours between the borders of Brazil and Uruguay because they got sent back from entering Uruguay to get insurance, arriving at the office to find it closed for lunch, then an hour later getting an invoice to pay but could only pay it in Uruguayan pesos so they find an ATM but their card is declined but they can go to another ATM and get Brazilian reals that they then go to a money exchanger to get the pesos to then go to the invoice office to pay to then go back to the insurance office to get the insurance and then back to the border
= Time not spent living the dream

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"To sleep, perchance to dream... of having the self-belief of an adult man whose forum contributions need to be moderated." Unknown

The key to a successful trip is to alter your dream so that it better conforms to realities on the ground...and to accept that there will certainly be days like that.

I'm aware of only two relatively easy options: buying Mercosur insurance once you've entered the southern tier (Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, I think Chile), which can apparently be done online in advance, and doing without any insurance at all most of the time. Otherwise you buy at the border, just like you would in most of the rest of the world.

I've heard of an insurance product being offered by a company which advertises here, claimed to cover liability insurance almost anywhere in the world (excepting places like North Korea, Cuba, etc.). This has always struck me as very improbable, but I've never had an explanation which inspired confidence either pro or con. In any case, it was very expensive.

And FWIW, it really doesn't take that long, and it really is easy. Most of the time. There are exceptions, of course, but you already knew that.

Thanks, Mark.

So in a nutshell, your answer is:

- you can buy 'Mercosur Insurance' in advance for some countries, but you don't have any provider names to give

- you can buy it at the border crossings, which you've pointed out I said we were prepared to do anyway


I would be most grateful if anyone could contribute to the first point on provider names and expected cost.

Thank you!

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"To sleep, perchance to dream... of having the self-belief of an adult man whose forum contributions need to be moderated." Unknown

You're welcome....although that's not quite all I offered. But I see that you're looking for specific answers, not general guidelines.

I didn't go this route, and my last South American trip was over ten years ago. However, it took me 30 seconds to Google up an email address for this company, which has in the past been reported helpful to lots of travelers: info@abgefahren.info . You'll find lots of references to them in the results from your own Googling. Good luck.

Mark

Of course I Googled before I wrote the post and started the discussion. Isn’t the point of this forum that people help each other and give as precise pointers as possible and first-hand accounts where they can?

Your clarification of the term ‘Mercosur Insurance’ is really very helpful so thank you for that.

But please consider how deliberately crafted my original post was. I had seen your very balanced last response to the sticky discussion on this topic from a few years ago, and I wanted to avoid the conversation going down this route.

The way I see it, it would be a shame for people to see that a veteran hubber has answered the initial question and be dissuaded from contributing. I’m guessing very few people will now bother to read this entire thread at this stage so I’m really shooting myself in the foot now but -

I generally do my research across the forum and the internet before I start a new topic (I know others don’t and it irritates me no end when I see their posts) and I hope that I’ve paid my dues sufficiently in posting informative content as I’ve travelled and come across situations where I believe that an account of my first-hand experience will smooth the way for other travellers.

Why am I asking for precise information in this case? Because although I’ve seen names of insurers being given by other travellers, I’ve also seen in my research people saying that they’ve been conned. Also, because of Covid, there’s been a real temporal gap in reports from people and I was hoping that this could be a contribution to the HUBB that would be updated and valid for the next few years

Now this thread can go die a death and I guess I’ll think twice before asking a precise question. With that, I’m off to buy Mercosur Insurance from the lowest bidder

Happy travels

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"To sleep, perchance to dream... of having the self-belief of an adult man whose forum contributions need to be moderated." Unknown

@mcwhirtj, thank you very much for the info, it's exactly what I was asking about. I also noticed that the Speiser Seguros website is down.

@chris, nice pile-on. You're really contributing to this discussion in a positive way, you must be proud. Veteran HUBBers stick together, right? Cute.

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"To sleep, perchance to dream... of having the self-belief of an adult man whose forum contributions need to be moderated." Unknown

Last year I purchased Mercosur insurance through http://www.dakarmotos.com

Great people to work with.

Another time I used Robbie Speiser at Speiser Seguros, whose name comes up often in post about Mercosur insurance. Fwiw, when I enquired last year, he said he was no longer handling motorcycle insurance and passed me off to an aunt or some other relative, but when I got her quote, the one from Dakar Motos was cheaper and I went with that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

We used the following companies for third party insurance by directly visiting their offices/ agents, except for HDI which can be done online.

ATM - Mercosur countries (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay)
HDI - Chile
La Positiva - Peru


Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

I looked into getting insurance for Chile online and wanted to share what I found so far. Why bother getting insurance in advance? I fear trying to enter Chile from Argentina at a small border crossing where I can't buy insurance on-site at the frontier....and getting turned back.

CHILE
The HDI website has a page that discusses the requirement that foreign riders must have SOAPEX insurance. Not sure exactly what the difference is between SOAP and SOAPEX, but I'll take HDI's advice that I need the latter.
https://www.hdi.cl/hdi-seguros-home/...e-auto/soapex/
There is a button on the above that points to the page where a quote can be generated.

SOAPEX
https://venta.hdi.cl/Soapex/home
TIP: The form has a field labeled "Ingresa tu Patente". Google Translate returns "Enter your Patent". I checked with Google's AI tool Bard and learned the needful. It means "Enter your license plate". I can do that!

Here are the quotes (generated July 2, 2023)
30 days - USD $23.33
60 days - USD $33.33

Currently, I am still looking for the unicorn, buying Mercosur insurance online for Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia, then throwing in Peru even thou I'll will have Peruvian SOAT insurance when I start the trip. It's not clear if the Peruvian insurance will expire before finishing the trip in the Peruvian Andes. I'll try digging deeper into the HDI website and reach out to Dakar Motors...skip the others that appear to need a visit to their offices.

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Peter B
2008/09 - NJ to Costa Rica and back to NJ
2012/13 - NJ to Northern Argentina, Jamaica, Cuba and back to NJ
2023 - Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia...back to Peru.

Blogs: Peter's Ride

Hi Peter,

The insurance that Dakar Motos sorted for us [when they were also providing us with import services] with SP Seguros covers:
Argentina
Chile
Bolivia
Peru
Brasil
Uruguay
Paraguay

It saved us a lot of time and was so easy to set up with DM's help, we did it over WhatsApp. We provided credit card details and a direct debit was set up.

Perhaps you can try going through SP Seguros directly?

Happy travels

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"To sleep, perchance to dream... of having the self-belief of an adult man whose forum contributions need to be moderated." Unknown