Bike Insurers wont cover Croatia or Bosnia

My Insurance is up for renewel with Fottman james, so rang them to check they are able to issue a green card for Croatia and Bosnia for the 3 week trip we are planning in june.....and they tell me they dont do them!
That is
No insurance cover provided for those Countries, so no green card either!
So spent a frustrating couple of days now trying to find an insurer who will cover, without success!
They all say "we used to, but now only cover EU States"

I guess our only way forward is to turn up at the borders and hope we can buy local cover.....

Has anyone any recent experience of this and if you got insurance where from and how much!

( i have searched the forum and seen lots of threads where people have managed to extract a green card foc or for a price but that does not seem an option that is available anymore!)
any helpful ideas considered, ta

Groupama through Carol Nash will certainly cover Croatia and Bosnia, together with the rest of the Balkans.

I pay about £250 inc Breakdwon Cover and free Green Card.
This is more expensive than available elsewhere but if you plan to tour anywhere mildly exotic the extra gtreen card coverage is worthwhile I think

purds said:

Groupama through Carol Nash will certainly cover Croatia and Bosnia, together with the rest of the Balkans.

I pay about £250 inc Breakdwon Cover and free Green Card.
This is more expensive than available elsewhere but if you plan to tour anywhere mildly exotic the extra gtreen card coverage is worthwhile I think

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thats interesting, they said no to me so will ring them back and see if I was just unlucky with the apparent muppet I spoke to!

that sort of money seems reasonable, as buying insurance at the border is quite expensive from the resarch on here I did!

thnaks for the headsup m8!

Yes, I'm having the same problem. My current Carole Nash insurance is with Equity Red Star who don't cover Croatia, but if I change to a Carole Nash Groupama policy, then they will cover Croatia, although they will need to issue me a Green Card for the Comp cover (no charge though). I'm having to cancel my existing policy two months early with no refund!

Sugar Ray said:

Yes, I'm having the same problem. My current Carole Nash insurance is with Equity Red Star who don't cover Croatia, but if I change to a Carole Nash Groupama policy, then they will cover Croatia, although they will need to issue me a Green Card for the Comp cover (no charge though). I'm having to cancel my existing policy two months early with no refund!

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ouch thats not good!

still, will be on fone to them tuesday to sort out my renewal and green card...
I hope!

russ996duke said:

ouch thats not good!

still, will be on fone to them tuesday to sort out my renewal and green card...
I hope!

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well rang carole nash today instead and sorted insurance out with them via groupama...more expensive than my existing policy so will not be using them after this year as the green card is only needed for the one trip...but at least we have fully comp cover and the green card to show the grenztruppen!

But the question still remains,can you buy local cover at the border? Anyone?

THE PICT said:

But the question still remains,can you buy local cover at the border? Anyone?

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Simply yes. I didn't have cover for Serbia, Montenegro. Albamia and Macedonia. All the crossings we did had insurance available except Montenegro, who didn't ask, so I didn't bother. It is expensive. 20 Euros for serbia, 40 for Albania. Turkey was cheap at 6 Euros.

of course this is third party only, so Groupama is a better bet. My fellow travellers froom Croatia had cover for the whole region. It was embarassing not to have the same cover.

regards,

Path.

THE PICT said:

But the question still remains,can you buy local cover at the border? Anyone?

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Croatian consulate in london confirms that insuarnce can be bought at their border for about £25/30 for croatia
unable to find out about bosnia but other threads on this site seem to say it can be bought 3rd party...but is expensive...maybe you could participate by doing some diggin for all of us and see what you can turn up for bosnia, maybe they have a consular office somewhere?

how are the roads slovenia,croatia,albania to greece I am hitting the road in august..my insurance doent cover croatia and bosnia albania either..any suggestions???thanks

try these guys

http://www.campbellirvine.com/

mozencesme said:

how are the roads slovenia,croatia,albania to greece I am hitting the road in august..my insurance doent cover croatia and bosnia albania either..any suggestions???thanks

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Slovenia and Croatia roads are fine.

Albania - depends which roads. We took road from Montenegro border down to Shkoder and it was tarmac but with huge deep potholes every few metres - average speed around 20mph! On the other hand road from Shkoder through Tirana, Albasan and on to Ohrid was absolutely fine.

For inusrance try Groupama through Carol Nash - will issue green card for all the abover countries foc.

mozencesme said:

how are the roads slovenia,croatia,albania to greece I am hitting the road in august..my insurance doent cover croatia and bosnia albania either..any suggestions???thanks

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Just back from a round trip that included Croatia and Bosnia.

BMW's insurance (through Davitt?) covers Croatia, but not Bosnia. Insurance for Bosnia (see kiosk with the sign "Green Card" at the border) costs €10 for eight days and covers the legal minimum third party road traffic regulations. So your take your vehicle at your own risk (we've done this with a car in previous years too).
Roads in Bosnia were great - lots of fresh tarmac, I suspect all the way to Sarajevo from the south, but I turned off at Jejce towards Banja Luka where the surfaces were still good, though under repair for a couple of extensive stretches.
I then continued north to Croatia (again) then Hungary, so have no idea about Albania and Greece...

If anyones interested ,last year it cost 30 euro for insurance in croatia bought at the border and 10 euro for bosnia. obviously the bare minimum of 3rd party.

Quite a bit of variation on prices there. I think it depends on which border you cross and who is manning it at the time.

Myself and numerous friends have passed through these same borders. I was covered for Croatia with my insurance from direct choice. Montenegro is €10, Albania was free (with the inherent risk that entails) in my case but I've heard it can be €15 depending on which border post you cross. Macedonia is €50. Serbia wouldn't let us in from Kosovo but there was talk of €70 if we were to back track and use another border entry.

On the Croatian coast where a small strip of Bosnia intersects the road you don't have to pay insurance to transit this tiny section of Bosnian territory. I reckon if it came to it most of that border insurance is not worth the paper it is written on and they would fleece you one way or another if you had an accident.

Just found this thread. Every policy I have had covered Croatia by default. On the renewal this year I asked about Bosnia and was told that I could have a free 90 day green card which covered Bosnia and many others with Equity Red Star.

Insurers do have a choice on whether to issue a Green card but there are are list of countries which have complied with the EU First Directive which extends motor insurance bought in any one of the counties to cover minimum requirements in any other. Although these are mostly EU there are a couple of others which have "joined". This includes Croatia so the insurer has no choice and it should be listed on the rear of the Certificate of Insurance with all the EU countries and Switzerland.

Insurance for Bosnia

I have been travelling to Bosnia almost annually for the last 14 years. It is always a bit of a faff crossing the border whichever way you enter. Insurance can be purchased at border crossings from Insurance kiosks. NOT ON SUNDAYS OR AFTER EVENING WORKING HOURS, about 1800hrs. Ask the Border control where to get insurance. The police will hold your passport while you do this. I have never had reason to mistrust this and it is much better and less threatening than it used to be. It costs currently( 2011) about £20.00 for a week.
Whether it is actually worth the paper it is written on or not I have never been able to determine and have not fortunately had to find out. It is very irritating that if you live in Germany or France and most of the rest of Europe, your bike insurance automatically covers Bosnia or it can be added at a very reasonable cost. As far as I have been able to determine, no UK insurer will offer Bosnian cover. Even BMW insurance will do it for Germany but not for UK.
Note:Riding/driving in Bosnia Hercegovina is like many non EU countries, poorly regulated , poor roads, and some total maniacs, made worse by alcohol, large logging wagons, potholes, severe bends and drops on some country roads, and the possibility of mines present in some places when you get off tarmac. Forested areas are subject to large logs or trunks on the roads and also big rocks or gravel from landslips.
Great country, very welcoming people but take it very steady and look to read the road and others with extra care. Doc.

Bit of an old thread now. My last post saying Equity Red Star offered a Green Card was based on info provided by my broker, Aqoute - but was wrong.

When I actually asked for the Green Card they claimed it was not needed as the back of the Certificate replaced a Green Card. Despite me explaining the difference between a certificate acting in place of a Green Card IN THE EU and a Green Card being a specific document which could not be replaced by a certificate they insisted they were right until I phoned Equity Red Star who confirmed they did NOT issue Green Cards and would not, under any circumstance cover Bosnia!!

I wrote to the Financial Services Authority detailing Aquote's failings and emailed a copy to Aquote asking for comments BEFORE sending it to the FSA. The result was that Aquote then agreed they were wrong and promised to sort it. The conclusion was they found only one insurer who would provide a Green Card for Bosnia and that was AXA. They then had to pay all the costs for cancelling my part used Equity Red Star Insurance and reinsuring the bike with AXA.

AXA provided the promised Green Card with no problem but my wife was insured with BMW and could not get one. When we travelled along the Croatia coast to Dubrovnik it was necessary to travel though a few miles of Bosnia. There was no way of buying insurance at the border in either direction but my wife was not asked for it either way so just drove carefully. When we went from Croatia to Bosnia to drive north to Mostar we found a Green Card booth hidden at the back of a truck park. The insurance cost 10 Euros for a week and was inspected (together with my Green Card) when we entered the country.

The roads in Bosnia much better than our experience in some other countries (Romania for example). We found some poor minor roads but no worse than a lot of roads in Kent and the main roads were generally quite good and very traffic free. Mostar was worth a visit with a new hotel about 5 mins from the bridge for 50 Euros for a huge double room with a kitchen and a 50" LED TV!! Went on north on good quality deserted roads with great scenery. It was definitely worth the aggro to get the insurance sorted and I guess the difficulty in getting insurers to cover Bosnia may have more to do with its recent history than its driving standards and road quality.

Carole Nash - Groupama - definetly cover Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia - but they have started charging for it - though unlike previous years your cover is extended to full cover.
Bosnia is superb.... spending 10 days a month there at the moment. anyone want some advice pm me ...