Assurances

That doesn't mean in English what it means in French.
Assurance (ass seur ongce) is Insurance, in English.
Do we have to have it? You bet! Even though we now own a vehicle, we dont have it. We have paid for it, we have insurance for it....after many e-mails between the Assurance (mutuelle) company and us, photos of our driver's licenses from two countries and attestations from the current US Insurance company that we have had no claims in the past 5 yrs etc. The vehicle in question is still at the Garage, and we are now waiting to be told to come and pick it up. First, we have to tell the Mutuelle company (Insurance company) to make our insurance on it, current. Sheesh!

Hopefully on Monday we will have a house, and we will have insurance for that too. Yay! Our realtor has a deal with this company whereby we get a 50% reduction on the premium for household insurance for the first year. WOW! Yes, we will gladly take that.
Our household insurance will be less than 200 euros for the first year, and the car insurance with all bells and whistles, including 24/7 roadside and car rental for when it is off the road for any reason, is less than 1/4 of the car insurance we pay in the USA.
We are also purchasing domestic accident insurance. This is pretty complex, we are finding. It is good for us as we get older, costs next to nothing, but the benefits are truly worthwhile.  It gives us household help should one of us be unable to care for ourselves, they will retrofit our home for us if we need it for day to day survival, among the many benefits. We figure that this is necessary.

If we have four separate insurances with this company we get 0 (zero) co-pay on any claims! woohoo! One more to go, then!

I think I discussed the possibility of getting an old 'work' vehicle, previously, and we may well do this yet. That decision will be made when we return from shipping all our goodies.

So, how are we finding all this 'wrangling' now that most of it is behind us?

To be perfectly honest? The worst of all the wrangling has been on the American side. The utter frustration of something that could have been avoided by asking one simple question of us, was a stress we didnt need. They have been 'told'!

We are still waiting on bank  verification, but that isnt stopping us doing banking. It just complicates it slightly, by us having to have the bank do all the paying. Crazy when they have our money, but we cant access it! No, this isnt too frustrating, just a bit weird!
It does mean that we have to make bulk payments, and cant yet set up monthly payments for anything. I dont know how this will affect us when we have to sign up for utilities, but Im sure the bank will have an answer for that too....we hope!

The bank told us to find car insurance somewhere else, which amused us, because we weren't yet verified, so we took ourselves off to the Mutuelle (Ins. Company) that is insuring the house. The fact that a bank turned down an opportunity to make money was the cause of the mirth. Most banks would be bending over backwards for business, but this is France!

So, that's it for now. Lets hope we get THE CALL this coming week to pick up our own vehicle. We can then return the rental car and stop paying for that!

I cant wait to cancel the car insurance in the USA. Having pre-sold the Honda Odyssey we are happy to have one less payment to worry about.

So there you have it! Just when you think things are going to be simple, a curve balls gets thrown. Lets see what the new week brings, shall we? lol.

Bon Week-end!