Yesterday I insured my 2008 Dacia Logan MCV 1.5DCi as a business vehicle for 640 RON, the equivalent of £128 per annum. Insurance is in my company name, Casa Cristina Roandola SRL, and it covers use in the role of a taxi, i.e. to collect guests from airports/stations or take them on day trips for payment. I didn't have to give any details of age, experience, driving licence etc.
Out of curiosity I have just compared UK insurance quotes and now firmly believe that UK insurers charge more than (no pun intended!) necessary in order to make huge profits.
For the UK quote I used personal details on file from 2008 with a well-known price comparison website (which only cost a "tenor") for quotes on a Discovery TDi and just changed the vehicle details. Although Dacia was listed as a manufacturer, my attempt to find "Logan" models produced no results, presumably because they are not yet sold in the UK. However, the Dacia company is owned by Renault and under the skin my car is in fact a Renault Modus. It shares the same floorpan/engine/gearbox/running gear etc, the seats are recognisably Renault and, whilst in the UK recently, I saw identical wheel trims on a Clio. The body is Dacia designed, albeit with Renault assistance, and has seven seats rather than the Modus's five.
So using the Renault Modus 1.5DCi and entering the same value as my Dacia, the website returned 80+ results. The cheapest was £164, then one at £190, quite a lot in the £210-230 range and the most expensive was £670! These quotes were based on the car being a business vehicle for my old occupation of signmaking and for owner/driver only. I dread to think how much the quotes would have been if I had requested cover for any driver, changed my occupation to guesthouse owner and included carrying passengers for reward!
There are far fewer vehicles on Romanian roads compared with the UK and repair costs for minor accident damage, even at franchised dealers, considerably lower than UK costs. However, statistics* show that Romania's road accident rates, based on criteria such as car ownership per 1000 population, are some of the highest in the EU. From what I have seen in 19 years of coming to Romania, accidents are more likely to be serious resulting in vehicles being written off, therefore if UK insurance rates were truly based on risk factors they should be much lower.
In 2007 Romania's road deaths were 2.6 times higher per million inhabitants and 7.4 times higher per million passenger cars than in the UK, not surprising really as most Romanian car drivers do NOT like being overtaken - other than those in the old type Dacia 1310 (ex Renault 12) models who have little choice in the matter! Many times I have safely got past a car which seemed quite happy cruising at 80/90kph only to find that I have triggered something in the driver which causes him to think that, even though I am travelling faster and drawing away from him, he MUST NOT LET ME BE IN FRONT OF HIM! Within a short distance, he (the great majority of Romanian drivers are male) will have put his foot down, caught up and then overtaken me again, seemingly oblivious to oncoming traffic, before dropping back to his former cruising speed just in front of me!
Built-up area speed limits, normally 50kph, and "No overtaking" zones are routinely ignored. I try to observe speed limits but it's difficult when another vehicle, usually an SUV or a large new German made car (!) is tailgating me. I have been overtaken in towns and villages by everything from cars to 40 tonne artics, not just travelling 10kph but 20 or 30kph faster than me.
Please don't let what I've said put you off coming to Romania though - I need guests for Casa Cristina! Keep your cool and let the budding Formula One drivers overtake, even if you are in a line of vehicles behind a slow truck. Generally speaking Romanian roads are much straighter than those in the UK and with no hedges to obscure the view, safe overtaking opportunities are plentiful.
I have always found that patience pays off. Often when following a slow vehicle up a winding hill I have been overtaken on a blind corner by an impatient driver and yet just round that corner the road is straight again or an uphill overtaking lane starts. Many times a car or van which has overtaken me in an inappropriate place has reached its destination 10kms down the road shortly before I go past again and the driver is only just getting out of his vehicle, having risked his life to save a few seconds.
My personal view, for what it's worth, is that many Romanians, especially in rural areas, haven't quite got used to the relative increase in car ownership (see below) and still drive as they did when it was possible to go for many kilometres with only horse drawn carts and people on bicycles to impede their progress.
* All statistics are from "EU Energy and Transport in Figures" 2009 (latest available downloadable PDF and based on 2007 figures) from which I reproduce a few facts.
1) Land areas of Romania and UK are similar at 237,500 and 244,000 sq kms respectively
2) Population figures though are very different with 21.5 million in Romania and 61.2 million in the UK
3) Car ownership in Romania was up 165% between 1995 and 2007 to 164 cars per 1000 population (still by far the lowest in the EU) and only one third of the UK figure of 476 cars per 1000 population
4) Road network (metalled surface) Romania 79,953kms (including 228kms of motorway), UK 174,942kms (including 3,670kms of motorway)
5) Road fatalities Romania 2,794 (130 per million population), UK 3,058 (50 per million population) for all categories of road user including pedestrians
6) Road accidents involving personal injury Romania 8,450 (393 per million population), UK 187,120 (3,063 per million population)
Note: According to the EU the last statistic may be distorted by the way different countries define an accident involving personal injury
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