UK Ferry Tickets

We all dream about it 358 days of the year – getting off the ferry and heading onto the open road, driving for miles with no worries, responsibility or stress. Sounds like heaven doesn’t it? It certainly does to me. No matter how much thought goes into the trip though, the likelihood is that you’ll forget one important thing if you’re taking your car with you to the Continent. Specifically, most people forget to check whether their car insurance covers them or not.

The truth is that the majority of car insurance policies only provide you with the level of cover you selected when taking out the policy in the local world region. In more simple terms, it’ll cover you if you’re driving in the UK (including Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) and the Republic of Ireland. If you head to the rest of Europe then it usually won’t provide the level of cover that you need to give you peace of mind.

Although most car insurance policies cover your car if you are in a European Union country, the majority of insurers only provide you with the basic level of cover so you can’t claim for an accident that is deemed your fault or anything above fire, theft and 3^rd party claims. In some cases, they don’t even provide you with all of that! The only way to find out what you’re covered for is to read the policy documents you were given or make a call to your insurer.

However, all is not lost! You can get the cover you need through your existing insurer, even if the basic level of cover doesn’t live up to much. Most car insurance companies offer policy extensions that you can take out for the duration of your self drive holiday. All you have to do is call your insurer and inform them that you’re taking your car to Europe and they can offer you advice on what is the best course of action to take is.

Your car insurance company can advise you on any number of things, from the availability and need for green cards (this only applies to certain countries) to the legality of insurance policies taken out in the UK. They can also extend your cover to make sure that your selected level of cover applies in Europe too. You do have to give specific dates for this because you will be charged for the extension and it can be quite expensive if you extend it for more or less days than necessary for different reasons. Some also offer breakdown cover that applies in Europe as well.

Making sure that you have enough insurance cover for your car should be top of your to do list when heading to Europe. It’s much better to be safe than sorry because anything can happen on the open road!

Guest Article by Louise Crowley

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008