Auto Insurance – What a Fricken Drama!
Intro
This trip must be somehow very important, I mean it is important to us, but it must, in some way be important on a completely unknown level of consciousness, why else would there be so many stones set in our path that we need to navigate around? I’m beginning to feel like the “Matrix” doesn’t want us to take this trip, perhaps this trip will free us from its grip and it’s doing everything in its power to discourage us from doing it.
Or perhaps shit happens, and in this it’s just happening and happening some more…
America or Canada, that is the question
When you are planning on travelling for an extended period of time, and with your own vehicle, it’s one of the first, and most important things you should organize. Foreign auto Insurance. It’s really only a little detail that generally only takes a few minutes to organize, or so we thought…
We wanted to start our adventure from Halifax, Canada, it would be a nice start to the trip. We were rather surprised, however, to hear from Seabridge (the shipping company we were using) that getting insurance in Canada for a foreign registered vehicle is all but impossible. The reason being Age, not my age and certainly not Gary’s age, but the age of our Land Rover. Apparently the only insurance company that is authorized to insure foreign Autos in Canada (Thum Insurance LLC) won’t insure vehicles that are 20 or older.
At first we didn’t take them all to seriously, we didn’t really believe that there was only a single company in the whole world that would insure a foreign registered vehicle with a port of entry in Canada. We searched the Internet and found several other blog entries of people who shipped to Halifax also with vehicles older than 20 so there must be other another solutions. That solution turned out to be Mr. Nowag from AIU Insurance (American International Underwriters). We gave Mr. Nowag a call and found out that AIU stopped insuring Vehicles with a Port of entry in Canada in 2012! The vehicle must enter through the USA before they will issue coverage, which means that the only way we can ship to Halifax is through Thum and the Land Rover is apparently too old!
That was how it was back in November 2014 since then everything has changed!
USA here we come, or maybe not
While quite frustrated that our original plan didn’t work out we have adjust to the changing times, go with the flow, roll with the punches etc. It could be worse, it could always be worse…
So swallowing the bitter pill we started shifting our planning around for a port of entry in Baltimore, then at least we would be able to get our insurance coverage through AIU. We weren’t going to let a little thing like 2,000 km get in the way, besides Gary knows a few people in Washington DC where we could couch surf and a few nice restaurants from his stint there. We even started getting friendly with the idea. Now that it was settled we could relax a bit, or so we thought…
Shipping and EPA Quirks
With our flights booked for Dulles we contacted Seabridge once again and sent them some photos of our Land Rover with it’s measurements so the shipping company could get an idea of the shape and size they would need to plan for. We then heard back a couple of days later that since November 2014 Bicycles are no longer allowed to be transported on the bike rack.
For some unknown reason they decided that the bike rack isn’t secure enough and now the bikes need to be stored inside the vehicle but lashed in a seaworthy way (as if the bike rack wouldn’t be seaworthy, I mean its designed to securely transport bikes on the outside of a car going over 100 km/h!) This means we need to pack our bikes in shipping boxes and secure them inside the car, anyone who has ever had to pack a bike in a shipping box knows how much a pain in the ass that is. Seabridge did tell us that if we didn’t want to ship from Hamburg, because of the problems with the bikes, we could ship with another company at another harbour which would allow the bikes to be transported on the bike rack, but they have their own quirk… we aren’t allowed to transport any clothing in the vehicle.. WTF? Seriously? That definitely isn’t an option so it looks like we will be packing our bikes in shipping boxes.
Then we got the big shipping package in the mail from Seabridge with all the details and information for Baltimore, and we were once again taken by surprise. We need to get an EPA exemption letter, which exempts our Land Rover from adhering to the current exhaust regulations. It is also needed in order to temporarily import a vehicle in the USA.
What we didn’t realize about the temporary import is that apparently its not just restricted to the USA but to the whole of North America. After exactly 1 year (on the day) our Land Rover must be off the North American continent, Canada or Mexico apparently don’t count, and if you do stay longer then you run the risk of having to pay huge fines. We know what temporary means, and that the vehicle is only allowed a maximum of 1 year in the USA, but thought that it was per country, and not for the entire bloody continent! We didn’t, couldn’t believe it, we thought that it must be some kind of mistake, but alas it’s true. All the travel blogs we read confirmed how strict the USA is about this, they even call the shipping company after a year and ask where the people are if they don’t report.
Most of the blogs we read about people being longer than one year in North America either entered through Canada (apparently Canada is not so anal about all that) or they actually travelled down to Belize to get a stamp saying the left the continent and then turned around and headed back up north with the allowance for another year! What a bunch of bureaucracy, and here I thought the Germans were bad!
Another quirk of the whole situation is the requirement for me to fill out an ESTA and have a return ticket to Germany in order to be allowed to board the plane for the USA in the first place. I didn’t understand why, I mean, we are not flying back to Germany at least not from the USA, we plan on travelling down to Patagonia or maybe even farther, why then pay extra for a return ticket and then have to cancel it at some point. Then of course there are the horror stories about the overzealous border control guys, and Gary told me of a couple of “uncomfortable” experiences that he had, which didn’t help ease things any (Ask him about his Bahamas experience shortly after 9/11 sometime it’s a doozy!)
It looks as though we can’t do anything about it, we either need to ship the car back to Europe at the end of the year or leave via Belize…
When is your Birthday?
The whole thing was starting to get a bit frustrating, what with all the paperwork and bureaucracy and then suddenly while looking at the Land Rovers paperwork we realize that it’s not actually 20 yet. It’s manufacture year is 1995, but apparently according to the papers it’s birthday is in Mai. Technically our Land Rover is only 19! I picked up the phone and called Seabridge and informed them of this, who then called the Insurance company to see what they thought. We would have to “prove” that our Land Rover is now a “proper” Camper via a few photos. According to the insurance company a proper camper is one that has a built in kitchen and water supply so…
Apparently our little effort paid off, Thum actually said that our “Kitchen” was good enough to qualify us as a Camper in their eyes, well if thats all it takes then it’s all good. The only problem is that their insurance package includes not only 3rd party insurance but collision, roadside assistance and a number of other goodies that we don’t need or want. Cost for 1 year: approx $2000 ouch! But we have a backup plan so we don’t have to take a complete year, we have Mr. Nowag from AIU he said he could insure us once we are in Canada so we wouldn’t have to take a complete year and his insurance would be much cheaper.
So to make sure everything was going according to plan I called Mr. Nowag again and got a rather big shock as he said “I won’t be able to insure you at all. AIU has decided to cancel the entire class of insurance so I won’t be able to help you.” WTF! A week ago everything was going smoothly and now all of a sudden we are left no other option but the bloody expensive one via Thum…
The Last Straw
So here we are left scratching our heads again, there has to be something else right? Nope, apparently not! All the other companies that offer insurance are some how in bed with AIU and apparently there is no other alternative. Even Seabridge is desperate, their entire business hangs in the balance since for older Campers there is now no insurer. We asked Tour Insure and apparently they are also desperate and calling every Insurance company in the USA they can think of to try and work out some kind of deal, they promised to call as soon as they have something new…
Actually we can be pretty thankful (and we are) that we even have insurance, but the price is damn high and its looking more and more like we are going to have to fork over the higher price in order to be insured at all, we won’t even be able to extend the insurance since the Land Rover will be 20… Either we take the insurance for a full year or not at all.
What now?
And suddenly everything changes again! Tour Insure called us with some good news, they were able to find another insurance company that they could negotiate a new deal with. And now everything is green lights all the way. Shipping to Halifax – No Problem! Vehicle 20 years old – No Problem! 3rd party only – No Problem! Price $500 – No fricken Problem!
We sent our paperwork in right away and according to Tour Insure it’s all looking good, the only problem is that it’s going to take a bit of time…
We’ve got a week before we ship the Land Rover, would be nice to have it all wrapped up before we put it on the ship…
Update [01.04.2015]
