Hi,

We will be crossing from Israel to Salerno, Italy by ferry in a few weeks in a UK registered Land Rover.

Need to sort out Green Card (we have no current UK insurance).

Does anyone know:

(a) Whether you can buy European Green Card cover at the port in Salerno

or, if not

(b) Whether Italian authorities require original certificate as Alessie Insurance seem to think - getting original docs sent out will be a hassle.

Thanks

Regarding the insurance at the Port I'd say: "probably not", companies here aren't very happy insuring foreign vehicles, since this question has come up before then here's a link that might be useful:


How does the European Green Card Insurance work?

Thanks Giacomo,

I had come across this before but it is no use to us as the car is UK registered. We have been out of the UK for 3 years (currently in the Middle East but shipping the car to Europe in a couple of weeks) so have no UK insurance. Our preferred option would be to insure the car in the UK and get EU cover on the back of this but we are drawing a blank with this for various reasons a) the car/we are not currently in the UK, b) it is substantially modified and c) it doesn't have an approved alarm fitted.

I have found green card insurance with Alessi (c. 250 euro for one month) but they are adamant we need the original card not a scan and I don't think the logistics of that are going to work. Hence us wondering if we can pick it up at the port.

Does anyone have any experience just relying on the scanned document?

My circumsatances were a bit different to yours but the info maybe helpful.

We arrived at Venice back in the good old days when the Visemar Line Alex to Venice ferry was still running driving an Australian car. I got green card insurance through Mototouring. You can send them a scan of your registration documents and they will send you a scan of the greencard and post the original to an address of your choice. This is useful if your registration has expired as you would be able to 'modify' the date on your registration documents. Not that I did this of course

Immigration was done on the boat and once we landed Italian customs weren't interested in looking at any paperwork, just a quick look inside the car and we were on the road. I think if you look like overlanders they won't give you any hassle. If, like some other passengers on the sailing we took, you are of Middle Eastern appearance and driving a van packed full of shrink wrapped boxes then expect the full treatment from Italian customs.

We drove through Italy, Austria, Germany, Holland then took a ferry to the UK and no-one ever asked to look at our insurance or registration documents. I think you're even less likely to get stopped as you'll have UK plates on your car, not funny looking non EU ones. If I were you I'd use Mototouring, they're the same price as Alessi and they're friendly, efficient and easy to deal with. One thing to check though is whether they will insure an EU vehicle. I thought the policies from Alessi and Mototouring were for non EU vehicles only?

Good luck with sorting it all out anyway.

Thanks MisterPaul,

Alessi will do a UK reg car, Motortouring won't so, we'll have to go with Alessi.

Good to know that you didn't get asked for any documents though as I think we may not get our hands on the hard copy. We will have the scanned one though.

Thanks again.