Well we need a car each for work and a spare in case one or other of the two is ‘en panne’.Then we have a couple of fun, classic cars. None of them are worth a great deal. There can even be advantages in that in the event of a breakdown I do not have to rush to the nearest garage to have it fixed but can take time searching for parts and then repairing myself or with the help of a friend. Had we just the one (or two) cars and there was a problem it is quite possible we would have to hire a car to cover work requirements.
Actually I just need two more cheap classics and then I can get a fleet policy with AXA.
I understand why a RHD car will be worth less here but I will never understand why that supposedly justifies not paying out a claim for replacement or repair. Oh, I remember now. The bend over backwards to refuse a claim or pay out a fraction of what we are led to expect. Insurance companies are not there for our convenience but their own profit, aided by the legal requirement that everyone has to play the game.
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Exactly. The car that I mentioned is being repaired with the owner paying the excess over and above the ‘experts’ valuation. The owner is not trying to gain anything, he just wants the car in the condition that it was in before it was hit by the other vehicle. His insurance company, who he believes should be fighting his corner, are not interested in the fact that the car is worth repairing (after all they would happily repair a LHD car of the same age and condition) they just realise that they can use their 50% joker to save a competitor some money. I suppose he could have gone back to the UK found an equivalent car, brought it to France, bought a set of expensive LHD Xenon headlights and registered it here but that would have cost far more than the insurance company paid. The only way to have an equivalent car is to pay out of his own pocket. Something wrong there.
Be interesting to know what Price When New the MMA insurance company put on the RHD car when they insured said vehicle. … did they put the List Price for Year of Manufacture… or some reduced figure just because the car is RHD…
Our own Insurance Company for our 2005 RHD… clearly states the Price When New… correctly… it makes no reduction/deduction for RHD …
I own two cars that I’ve had since new and I’ve never been asked what they cost. I am, however, moving one of my cars to another company and after completing the paperwork I asked the agent why they hadn’t asked if the car was RHD as surely that would have a bearing on its value. She admitted that, despite having a lot of British customers on their books they had never considered that point.
So it sounds as if your Insurer doesn’t mind RHD or LHD… which means both would/should be treated the same… in case of accidental damage… 
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The agent might think that but I’m sure that the bean counters think differently. The car is LHD anyway so it’s not an issue.
My point is that my lot have taken on board the value of the car… it’s clearly listed in the bumpf…
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'Til you make a claim Stella, it will be valued then as (I assume) French reg, RHD, not worth much in Fance. If it’s a ‘Classic’, insure with a specialist company. 
Listed in the B’ ‘moving goalposts’, Stella 
According to Bill’s theory having the steering wheel on the wrong side makes a car worthless. I guess somebody had better tell the people selling this one;
Interesting comments re the value of RHD & LHD cars. As it happens I am selling a RHD 2007 Nissan Qashqai 1.5 dci with 128000 miles on the clock. It is french registered. A look on Autotrader UK (it IS a UK car, after all) shows prices in the region of £2400/2700 euros. The same model but LHD on Leboncoin is £4600/5100 euros. That makes the french LHD car worth almost twice its RHD counterpart’s value.
So it would be fair to say that, in general, a RHD car is probably worth 50% of a LHD one. The insurance companies are therefore correct.
We would not appreciate people buying cheap RHD cars in the UK & deliberately writing them off over here in order to make a quick buck! There are already enough people trying to sell RHD cars for just slightly less than a LHD one as if a 60 quid ferry ticket magically adds thousands to the value although the potential market for such a car is tiny.
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When I get a moment… I will raise this question with my Insurance Company…and I will let you know their reply…
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Thanks for a ‘sensible realistic’ response Mark. 
This post started out as a warning to people and was hijacked by the anti RHD drivers brigade. The warning still stands and there are a huge number of fairly new, RHD ‘’prestige’ cars around where I live and I believe it’s important for their owners to be aware of the situation. I would also like to point out that the owner I referred to was not out to make money and certainly didn’t set out to write off his RHD car to make a profit, he was the unfortunate victim of an accident when his car had stopped and the insurance company refused to repair his car when they would happily have repaired a LHD model. With insurance companies it’s all about perceived monetary value and they have the ability to manipulate the figures to their advantage. Please accept this as a warning, let the ‘RHD is dangerous’ and points scoring scallops be relegated to where it belongs and if you do have a valuable RHD car perhaps have a word with your insurance company to see where you stand.
Good to see you understand the situation now Dave, maybe Mark has explained it better than me. 
I always understood the situation Bill, it was you who took it off at a tangent with you unbending idea that driving a RHD car is dangerous. I’ve decided that perhaps you use that word because you suffer a vocabulary deficit so that’s my last word on that.
Poor David, don’t get wound up mate, I was only trying to describe why the Guys car was not worth much here.
No need to be offensive about my language skills, ‘as well as’ my choice of new LHD French car’. 
We do not know the circumstances under which David’s friend’s insurance company decided its value. Insurance companies do not usually authorise repairs when the cost of repair is greater than the vehicle’s perceived value. As a RHD vehicle is not worth as much in this market as a LHD it stands to reason that the threshold for this figure being reached will be lower.
The damage would have the same repair cost on either car but if that figure is, for example, 4000 euro, it would be worth doing on a 6000 euro car but not on a 3000 euro one.
Insurance companies usually work on a figure of 60% of its trade value as a write off point.
Personally I cannot understand why one would bring an almost new RHD expensive car to a country where LHD is the norm. In the first couple of years prices of either are similar to each other in each country & with more powerful cars the Malus tax on first registration can add thousands to the import costs anyway. You will still end up with a car which will not command a decent resale value. I suppose if you have the money to spend on such luxuries you can afford to take the hit.
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