I have just used Mototouring Italy [who use UTI as the underwriter] and have been super surprised at how easy and fast it was. I saw that someone on HUBB had emailed with "mariaelena" using rental@mototouring.com, so did the same. Almost immediately, back came the application form I had to complete and send it back by email with a copy of my registration papers attached.

I was on a very tight timeframe, leaving Oz and arriving in UK to ride the bike, which I explained to Mariaelena in the original email. No problem - she then responded that everything had already been initiated. Two days later, as I arrived in the UK, her email arrived with a copy of the Green card attached!! I printed it out in colour - DONE! How good is that, for service?? Wonderful! The original GreenCard then arrived a couple of days later at the UK address to which it was to be sent.

The application form has all the prices on it. I paid 218euro for 90 days, roughly 100euros less than ADAC. And the best part is that it can all be done by email! Thoroughly recommended.

Too easy!

__________________
Margaret
"twenty grand and twenty miles don't make you a biker"
www.ridingtoextremes.com

I second everything that Margaret said in her post (directly above).

I purchased my Summer 2011 insurance through MotoTouring, and I was very pleased with the service that they provided.

I had asked them to send the document (by post) to a friend of mine in Germany - for some reason, the letter was returned to MotoTouring by the post office. The staff at MotoTouring contacted me immediately by email to let me know about this. By coincidence, I was planning to drive through Milan (in a rental car) a few days after they emailed me, so, I dropped into their office to pick the document up in person.

Below is a picture of the entry to their premises, which is in a suburb of Milan. They also have a complete motorcycle workshop and facilities for storing motorcycles at this location.

If anyone needs to go there in person in the future, the GPS co-ordinates (WGS 84 datum, expressed in Garmin format) are as follows: N45 30.560 E9 14.458

Michael

MotoTouring Office, Milan

I used MotoTouring as well in 2010 and was very pleased with their service, but the insurance had many exclusions at the time: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia Herzegovina, Israel, Iran, Morocco, Moldavia, Macedonia (FYROM), Russia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey and the Ukraine. I think that these exclusions are fairly common.

Motorcycle Express Motorcycle Express - Ship Your Bike, however, offers Green Card insurance for non-Europeans that says "is valid all over Europe including Russia, Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia". They don't list any excluded European countries. It's not cheap (e.g., $550 for 3 months, $1050 for 6 months for liability alone), but there is limited theft and collision available (at even higher rates).

Two questions:

1) Is this universal Green Card for Europe actually recognized at the borders of all the included countries? I remember reading a thread not all that long ago about the fact that although Russia had been officially included into the Green Card program, the border officials and particularly the road police were unaware of it and were looking for an older form of insurance documentation. Has that situation changed?

2) If one plans on visiting many of the normally excluded countries listed above, is it smarter (though maybe more expensive) to buy a comprehensive package from MotorcycleExpress or better to get less expensive but less-inclusive coverage from MotoTouring and buy additional coverage at the borders? I know that when I was in Turkey in 2010, three months of "insurance" cost about $10 at the border. Made me seriously wonder just how much insurance I really had. None.

__________________
Samuel Longiaru
Kamloops, BC Canada
1975 BMW R60/6
http://thetwilightproject.net

Andorra shouldn't be excluded. While not an EU member it has always been included and is often visited by other Europeans.

I wouldn't dismiss the cheap Turkish insurance, just because it seems too cheap. In any case, you will have the official paper in your hand if stopped or, like me, unlucky enough to be involved in a collision. It's the first paper the cops want to see.

As to your question of what is smarter: I think there are many answers to this one, not least depending on what countries you specifically intend to visit and how long you wish to travel.

__________________
Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10

OK... that's a good test case. So what did your Turkish insurance company do for you... or was it just the paper to show? Hopefully, your situation didn't really require them to do anything.

__________________
Samuel Longiaru
Kamloops, BC Canada
1975 BMW R60/6
http://thetwilightproject.net

They did nothing, as it wasn't my fault. But, as I said, the cops wanted to see my insurance and I don't want to know what would have happened if I didn't have any. As it was, it took about 18 months to get my money out of the car driver's insurance.

__________________
Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10

Sam,

Russia "joined" Euro Greencard insurance consortium eff. 01 Jan 2009:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ow-valid-40443

BUT
1) No one has reported here on HUBB actual experience of
a. first obtaining Euro Greencard that is endorsed for/ includes RUssia;
b. presenting that document at RU border crossing;
c. having that document accepted by RU border crossing authorities;
d. (much less) recognized by RU traffic police/ authorities on the road;
e. (to say nothing of) submitting claim successfully after accident in RU.

A general Google search in English displays no actual experience reports
from non-HUBB sources since the 2009 RU official announcement.
General interest RU travel sites like
Traveling to & from Russia by car, motorcycle or hitchhiking | waytorussia.net page
still reference obtaining RU insurance separately at the border.

The MotorcycleExpress policy is actually underwritten by a large Euro insurance company AXA, through a general managing agent, tourinsure.de. in Germany. Presumably AXA would not claim that its Euro Greencard covers RU without having made all the required legal/ commercial agreements with the RU authorities. (It's one thing for RU to "join"; its another for Euro (& UK)
insurance underwriters to actually include/ extend that cover. it's a third for the "policy" to work its way down to on-the-ground reality.)

RU bottom-line: it's still an unknown crapshoot

2) Beddhist is right. And both the Greencard--or separate border insurance-- are first/ foremost "just the paper to show," because there is so little actual accident/ claim experience reported. "What did your [Turkey] company do for you?" is an unknowable (anywhere in the world) until there's an actual covered accident, and then it all depends on the specific circumstances.

Think of TP insurance as a 'get-out-of-jail-card'.

__________________
Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10

Thanks for all the research and your views. Interesting. Maybe I should fall on the sword, try the all-European Green Card and report back. I am planning on traveling to several of the normally excluded countries, including Morocco, some of the Balkan states and Russia. I can see if it is accepted at the borders and if not, I'll just buy some local insurance too. Maybe first I should try to get a sense of how much money I might waste with duplicate coverage though.

I can just see it being accepted at some border but later, me being hauled off in the paddy wagon by a road cop because he's never seen a Green Card certificate before.

If you never hear from me again... well... it didn't work.

__________________
Samuel Longiaru
Kamloops, BC Canada
1975 BMW R60/6
http://thetwilightproject.net

Regarding the practicalities of relying on greencard insurance in Russia.

This summer (2011) whilst importing my bike through Vladivostok I teamed up with two Croations who had European Greencards with Russian coverage. This was their experience:
- Customs at Vladivostok took a lot of convincing by a Russian speaking friend before they would believe that the Croations had any coverage. The basic problem was because the document was (a) not in Russian and (b) the officers had not seen a "green card" before and did not understand this multi-country insurance. Without valid insurance Customs will not release the bikes. After about two hours, and mainly I think to get rid of them, customs accepted the "green card" and agreed to release their bikes.
- The locals (customs officers, local bikers and our shipping agent) pointed out to the Croations that they would need to repeat this arguing everytime they were stopped by the traffic police for a document check.

The net result was the Croations after a lot of persuading by locals ended up buying local Russian insurance to avoid possible future problems (which is cheap at $20 for 1 month or $50 for three months).

I thinkthey did the right thing; document checks by the highway police are common, in the three months I was in Russia I was stopped 6 - 8 times for these. These were all friendly but in each case they wanted to check:
- Insurance (no problem mine was in Russian)
- Driving licence (no problem - International licence was in Russian)
- Bike papers (sometimes a bit of pantomine explaining it because it was only in English - but because the Plate number and date were clear it was always quickly accepted.

With a non-Russian language greencard I'm certain at least some of these stops would have taken many hours instead of the minutes they did and might well have involved a trip to the station. So bottom line yes Russia is now part of the green card system but coming from the east there appears to be no knowledge of it and if you want to rely on it plan to spend a lot of time explaining yourself (and your Russian better be good).

Hope this helps.

__________________
Martin

finally back on the road again


http://awayonmybike.blogspot.com/

Sam:

Over the past 10 years, I've bought insurance from both Motorcycle Express and MotoTouring. I used to buy it from ADAC in Germany before their rates went up - then I shifted to MotoTouring. I'll probably buy from the Bulgarian company next year. I have a Canadian (Ontario) plated ST1100 that I ship back and forth to Europe.

You raised a question about the difference between the coverage from Motorcycle Express and the others. Basically, it's like this: Motorcycle Express covers just about every country between Iceland and Iran. There might be one or two exceptions in former Yugoslavia - you will need to check with them to be sure. What countries get excluded varies from year to year, depending on who is having a war, who is under sanctions, etc.

The other companies - Knopf, ADAC, MotoTouring, the Bulgarian company, et al, write policies that are primarily marketed to non-EC residents who live around the periphery of the EC (for example, residents of Ukraine, Turkey, North Africa, etc.) who want to drive their vehicles into the EC. Hence, the area covered by these policies is limited to the EC (plus Switzerland). Commercially, this is easy to do because there are common liability insurance requirements throughout the EC, similar to how there are common liability insurance requirements between all the Canadian provinces and all the American states (your 'pink insurance slip' covers you for all of the USA and Canada).

What you need to do is decide what coverage you need - just the EC (plus Switzerland), or all of Eastern Europe and North Africa. If you only need the former, then get the cheapest policy you can get. A 'EC Green Card' the same, no matter who you get it from, you get exactly the same coverage on exactly the same paper form. If you plan to travel in countries outside of the EC, you have a choice of either buying the more expensive Motorcycle Express policy, which covers far more countries; or, buying a EC only 'green card' policy and then buying supplemental coverage (typically at the border) for whatever non-EC countries you are planning to enter.

If you plan to do more than just one non-EC country, it is probably most trouble-free to buy the Motorcycle Express policy. If you only plan to do one non-EC country, it may or may not be cheaper to buy specific-country coverage for that country at their border. For example, I went from Switzerland to Turkey and back this past fall - during the same period that the policy shown below was valid - and bought coverage for Turkey (a non-EC country, notice the X through 'TR' in the policy below) for about CAD $30 at the Turkish border.

ALL of these insurance policies (Motorcycle Express, all the 'EC only ones', and even the single-country ones you buy at the border) are usually issued on identical looking forms. Typically, all the forms are green. The forms will usually have country codes for just about everywhere you could possibly drive to from Western Europe, and the countries that are not covered by any one policy will have a big X through them.

The trick is to buy only the coverage you need. Because everyone's coverage (for basic liability) is identical - inside or outside of the EC - consider it to be a fungible commodity, like gasoline or flour or rice - buy your liability insurance only on the basis of price and reputation of the vendor for service, because the commodity being sold by everyone - the insurance policy itself - is identical in every respect (except, of course, for the number of countries covered). You won't ever need to worry about making a claim, because it is bare-bones liability coverage only, which means that it's the guy or girl you hit who has to worry about getting paid.

You could, if you wish, buy both liability and theft/collision coverage from Motorcycle Express. That is quite expensive, but it protects your motorcycle. I used to do that when my moto was new - I don't bother any more. I once made a claim on the collision coverage, and it was handled promptly, fairly, and with excellent service all around.

Below is an image of a policy paper (the famous 'green card'). Note that some of the country codes are crossed out. That is because this policy (from MotoTouring) only covers the EC + Switzerland. If you bought from Motorcycle Express, it would look identical except fewer countries would be crossed out.

Michael