Date:         Mon, 16 Oct 1995 09:45:17 +0100 (MET)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         darie@hasler.ascom.ch (Darie Duclos)
Subject:      Re: Vans in europe? (Insurance)



> Darie, did you have similar a similar problem in Schweiz? Did you
> drive your bus Canada registered and/or insured in Europe? Did you
> have any hassle with customs? Had to pay duties? Pass inspections etc?

Oh! Hi! It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped, you're right.

INSURANCE

> (1) Most insurance agents didn't want to deal with me at all.

Ditto. "Car not registered in Switzerland? Nope, we don't insure those.
We don't care if you're *allowed* to drive it for a year on your
country's registration. We've never heard of this law."
 
> The ones who did would:
> (2) Require me to get a NY state license first, even though I'm
> allowed to drive here on my Swedish license so long I'm a nonresident.

We were told we would have to get a moped license if we wanted to register 
our moped here. Since I haven't tried to register the van yet, I don't know
if we will have to do the same. Could be that you can drive a car in 
Switzerland on a foreign driver's license, but you can't *own* a car
here without a local license. I guess as far as they're concerned now, 
I don't own a car in Switzerland, I own a car in Canada which happens
to be in Switzerland at the moment.

> (3) Put me in the highest risk pool regardless of prior driving experience
> (10 years + commercial drivers licence education).

Switzerland seems to work differently. The price you pay depends on the
power of your motor (i.e. cc). There don't seem to be big differences in
premiums otherwise, everyone has to pay an outrageous price :-)

> (4) Add an "inexperienced operator" surcharge the first 3 years.

I was lucky. I finally found a company that would insure the van on
Qc plates. On top of that, they accepted a letter from my previous
(CDN) insurance company stating that I'd had no claims in the x number
of years insured with them. This dropped my premiums by about 30%!
Then, when I complained that the size of my motor was hardly an indication
of the speed it could make the van go (i.e. top speed 120 km/h), my
agent looked into options and came back with another significant discount
based on the fact that he called the van a motorhome. He said that at
the time it will pass inspection, he can't garantee that it will
remain in this category, but for now we can get away with it.


CUSTOMS/DUTIES

You are allowed to bring with you anything you've owned for over 6 months
(but you can't sell it for the 1st year) without paying any duties. As
for customs formalities, my moving company took care of everything, I just
had to show up at a customs house in Bern with the bus and sign a few
papers, and they checked that the serial number on the bus matched that
on the papers.


INSPECTION

<Shiver> Don't remind me. I don't have to pass inspection until May
when my canadian registration runs out and I have to get swiss plates.
I'm not worried about emission standards, but about everything else.
It's *very* expensive to get a car fixed here. 

> As for finding good and relatively cheap busses to buy in Europe I'm
> not as pessimistic as some of you. When I lived in Sweden older busses
> there could be had at the same prices or cheaper than in the US.

That certainly isn't the case in Switzerland, otherwise I would have
tried to sell mine before I came here. As it is, if I keep the beast
in good shape, I could sell it in a year or 2 and break even or maybe
even make a bit of a profit!

I'm happy I brought the bus 'cause I think it's a great way to see 
Europe, and since Brian and I are rockclimbers, it's great to bring 
our home to the cliffs and stay for the weekend. However, now that 
I'm stuck with no clutch and the book says I have to remove the motor
and garage costs are outrageous and this is ideal climbing weather..
now I'm climbing the walls trying to figure out what to do with it.


Darie
'86 Westy