This year we hope

Hi David and Maria I wish you well with completing your building work by the end of this year. I can understand the frustrations. We have a house in Southern Lazio which is so lovely, has everything all set up, is our new home and ready to live in but we are having to delay our wished for date for living there as we have a business to sell over here in the UK first. My husband drove a car down to the house to leave there, a UK registered car, and we have it insured for 6 months for Italy on our normal insurance. Is yours a UK registered car and if so what insurance company are you with in order to leave it there? Not being nosy, just looking at the options. One option is to register our car over there and insure it in Italy. I hope, ash clouds allowing, to be flying to Rome from Newcastle this Wednesday for a couple of weeks. I cannot wait!! Maralyn

MARALYN, try Saga in the UK. You can insure a car and take it out of the UK into Europe for a whole year provided that you have a UK address. Frank.

Hi Frank I phoned Saga the other day (our insurance renews tomorrow, 18th) and they told me they couldn't insure it for Italy! I thought that odd since I had read somewhere before that Saga did insurance for me to take a car to Italy. Thanks, I will try them again. Maybe I had a person who was not knowledgeable about that. Maralyn

MARALYN, When we insured our car , we insured for normal use in the uk, and they said that it would be covered for use in Europe with no limited trip duration, ie, we could drive in Europe for a whole year. I didn't ask about insuring the car for sole use in Italy. Although the car spends most of its time out of the UK being here in Italy, traveling to Greece 3 times a year. a couple of trips to France and back to Uk for MOT. Perhaps you should think about how you couch your question, you may be speaking to someone in Mumbai. I cant remember now. I hope this helps. Frank.

Thanks Frank, I did try and ring them. The website says they are open until 3pm on Saturdays and their answerphone says they close at 1pm so sent an email asking them to get back to me. I will do as you say, not mention just how long we want the car out of the country. Annoying thing is I confirmed our new year of insurance to start yesterday with our current insurer (starts midnight 18th April) who will only do 6 months abroad. Wonder if I do get a quote from Saga if it would be worth cancelling my one at the moment (could be a loss of some money) and going with Saga. Will work on it. Thank you. Maralyn

Been out in Italy for 4 years and I didn't have much to do with General Insurance as compared to life/CI etc but certainly policies I advised always had a 14 day cancellation notice period. I am sure someone out there will be able to correct me on General Insurance, but worth checking the small print if you want to change insurer this early on.

Thank you Frank and Karen. I have today cancelled (with the given 14 day cancellation period) our other insurance and now have insurance with Saga which covers the car for a year in Italy. Thank you for your advice. I am a very happy bunny! Maralyn

I have a feeling they are - if you need longer cover and are not 50 I think ecar also allow trips up to 365 days... Am

Hi Maralyn, sorry for the delay, a year on, we insure with stuart collins and can be covered leaving the car in italy even if we arent there with it. We are finaly hoping to get at least one floor done and awaiting preventivos tosee if it is possible on our current budget, we want to spend our time 50/50 england and sicily. hope you managed to sell your business and get to use your new home.