That’s crazy… if they’ve got human beings manning the office.. they should ensure they are capable of taking charge when you visit after a burglary, accident, whatever… clients aren’t just numbers… aaargh.
I agree. I hate it. Especially if you’re foreign and French isn’t your first language. At a time when you’re already stressed.
1 Like
We do have MACIF and Groupama. Thanks - I’ll try them.
I also wondered about GMF.
1 Like
yes indeed. Ours will let me sit, talk through the problem and then they phone the main office/whomever… they act as a wonderful go-between and we talk slowly, carefully, to ensure we do understand one another.
Groupama Gets our vote, they dealt with what amounted to a fraudulent claim against us. They were terrific and sorted everything out without any stress.
2 Likes
Not sure how useful an exercise this is but now I’m curious.
To change insurer in the UK, do you have to obtain the equivalent of a relevé d’information from the existing insurer? In France this is something that has to be requested. You can’t just print it off from your espace particulier. Apparently.
Also, can you cancel a car insurance policy in the UK simply on demand? Of do you have to provide proof of having sold or otherwise disposed of the car or taken out alternative insurance? As in France.
It’s often stored on the insurance database shared by insurance companies. Not been asked for it in many years
I’d never been asked for it until last December. But then I hadn’t tried to change insurer for years. Now any new insurer will ask for it. Or so AXA told me. The existing insurer has a legal obligation to cough it up within a certain period.
If you’re using your no claims bonus to reduce the premium then you’ll need to provide proof but it’s normally provided with your renewal.
Yes, unless you’ve claimed on it, in which case you can cancel it but won’t get any premium refunded
1 Like
I agree, that’s why all our staff is in France, reachable over the phone and fluent in English (technically we have 3 Brits and 1 American which do most of the customer service so that you’re dealing with other expats / english speaking natives 
). And I have a preference for video calls so that even if we’re dealing with things remotely if feels and look more personal although emails and phone are perfectly fine as well
6 Likes
If you move back to the UK, I imagine (but people like @tim17 will know for definite) that you have to provide some sort of document from your French insurers to show the French equivalent of a no-claims bonus. That was the tricky bit when getting insured in France for the first time.
1 Like
I have GMF and they are wonderful at taking my money. I have no idea if they will return it when the need arises. I only really got them because they were pretty cheap initially and , on top of it, they were having a ‘sale’ to celebrate their 80th anniversary, so all policies were discounted by 80 euros. So my first year (for a fully comprehensive policy on a 10 year old Pug 207) was about 230 euros. When I renewed last year it went up from (what should have been) 310 euros to 350. I was going to shop around, but it was too late to do anything about it. Really can’t complain.
BTW, having a company that takes your money isn’t all bad. In the US, my wife had a health insurance company (the notorious United Healthcare) that was just a pain to pay.
1 Like
We had to get proof from Groupama, they provided this just before we left so we didn’t have a delay.
2 Likes
It would be interesting to have the views of @fabien on this topic strong text
1 Like
Hi Mat, more than happy to but the thread seems to be a bit long and just to make sure I’m not mistaken what would that topic be? Sorry I’m doing as best as I Frenchly can but sometimes gets confused lol
1 Like
I’m using Fabien again…a better deal than last year, and they take care of cancelling the old policy etc…
just very convenient for us.
3 Likes
That the notice of price for renewal comes so late that there isn’t time to shop around to get quotes ro change insurers
Could not be happier with the service from @fabien and his team.
Back-along, at house policy renewal time, he contacted me to say that the cost of renewing the existing policy was unacceptable and that a better premium was being sought. Result! Chapeau!
That’s the sort of broker service that is worth the set-up fees.
As I experienced when an accident at my boatyard resulted in serious injury to my p.a. My broker said, “Leave it to me.” I did. I never heard another thing until the denoument that all was settled, the injured party was under successful treatment and that was the end of it.
The broker, ironically, had been trying to retire for several years.
2 Likes
Thanks Jane, ok that’s not illegal although it then gives you extra time to cancel. Basically either the policy has lapsed onto its second (or more) year and then you can cancel whenever you want using something previously known as the « loi Hamon » at 0 penalty and you get all your money back if prepaid or yearly payments. Or you are more than a month prior to renewal and your policy is in its first year and then you use something known as the loi Chatel to prevent it from being renewed. Personally I prefer the loi Hamon as it’s more certain and is a smoother process but they are both on the table (if I’m being honest even if you are under a month prior to renewal it works but in that scenario it’s almost certain they’ll debit you anyways because of banking delays so it creates a bit of a messy situation that I prefer to avoid, especially if you block the renewal payment they can legally consider the policy was terminated because of outstanding payment and for car insurance it means a massive premium increase with the competition whereas loi Hamon works perfectly well and is « risk free »).
2 Likes
Thanks for that very clear explanation Fabien.
AXA - the one insurer I had time to get a quote from between receiving the avis de renouvellement and everything closing for Christmas - did point out that even if I didn’t manage to complete the process of switching before my old insurer (Crédit Mutuel) debited me early January, I could claim back the premium later.
But given that my conseillère at the Crédit Mutuel was proving uncontactable and my (verbal) request to her colleague for a relevé d’information had been ignored, I could imagine the palaver of trying to get the premium back from them.
So I gave in and renewed with Crédit Mutuel and promised myself I’d be better prepared this year.
They have 15 days to cough up the relevé, right? At least now I have an espace particulier so will use that to make a written request.
Just out of interest. In the UK, while it is certainly permissible to switch insurers at any time, some insurers charge administration fees if you cancel before the policy expiry date. Does that happen in France? As I understand it, if the policy is more than 1 year old when you cancel, they’re not allowed to charge you anything other than the cost of insuring the vehicle.