I had a call back from Renault Insurance. The could only go as low (ha!) as £1,400.

The guy I spoke to was very helpful and asserted that a verbal confirmation in a recorded call would be enough to ‘cover my back’ with regards to Admiral – so even if it turns out in the event of an accident that they won’t cover the battery, I can assert that I was sold something under conditions that said otherwise.

I’ve just got off the phone from Admiral, and a nice lady called Daisy checked with her manager who confirmed that the battery would be covered. I asked if I could have that in writing, and she said that wouldn’t be possible until a policy was bought, citing inflexibility of the IT system.

She suggested that the cover of the battery would be included in the general terms and conditions, but having looked at the PDFs on the site there’s no mention of electric vehicles or batteries at all.

I’m not very comfortable with having only a verbal agreement that the battery is covered – I’d like something explicit, as I know how slippery insurers can be.

Ok, I’ve found an email address for QuoteMeHappy in their customer complains leaflet: team@quotemehappy.com. I’ve emailed asking whether my quote includes the leased battery and whether I need to do anything special.

Quote from RCI clarifying that they don’t need any proof that insurer has acknowledged battery cover:

If you just ensure that the insurance provider is made aware that they’d be insuring the chassi and the battery, that would be fine. RCI do not require proof that this has been acknowleged by them.

Someone on Twitter suggested QuoteMeHappy would cover the Zoe and battery; their website doesn’t list the Zoe as available model though?

@nickh: Awesome, thanks so much for sharing that. I ran out of time in my lunch break today to call people; if you get an affirmative from Admiral then you might have saved me a whole load of hassle, and found a solution to our problems.

Here’s a quick recap of conversations I’ve got in motion to try and sort out this mess:

• RCI: I’ve asked if there’s any possibility to have a Dutch-style battery-only insurance provided for ~£10/month. I’m doubtful anything will come of this, but worth a try. I’ve also asked for the decision-makers to consider that this is a big oversight in terms of customer experience
• P F Spare (PlugInsure): PlugInsure’s underlying insurer pulled their EV deal, but they’re chasing a new provider. I’ve emailed to ask if they can cover the battery and car under one policy with their normal (non-EV) providers
• My dealer: I’ve emailed a sitrep to my dealer, expressing my displeasure and pointing out that I may have to cancel my order. Hopefully he can apply some pressure to the marketing and customer services people to try and resolve the ambiguous wording/inconvenient terms of the battery lease. He’s been ace so far and I’m a bit annoyed they didn’t give him the information we need either, as it puts him in the firing line of angry customers when it’s actually a strategic policy cock-up
• Renault Insurance: Trying to get a cheaper quote from them for my missus. The chap there also said someone from Renault Customer Services would be in touch. Given that they dealt with my previous complaints about British Gas very efficiently and took my desire to help as an early adopter in good faith, I have some hope that we might get a response
• Admiral: I’ve got a quote in flight I need to chase up. Hopefully thanks to the sterling efforts of @nickh this one will be a little easier, and will at least take all other routes off the critical path to Zoe ownership

I’ll post any updates I have so hopefully other prospective owners can benefit. I’d urge you all to chase dealers/Renault customer services/RCI if you’re in any sort of dodgy situation, as the more of us highlight the issue the sooner Renault may do something about it. Thanks to everyone that’s contributed knowledge/quotes/documents to this discussion – hopefully together we can iron out all the kinks in the process.

Also, apologies in advance for any ranting I do on here, it’s my only EV-rage outlet 🙂 I’m loathed to whinge to my colleagues as all I’ll get is “well it’s your fault for getting an electric car in the first place!”

Just got of the phone from Admiral – I’m already insured with them. I asked for a quote for a value of £16,000. I also said that the battery was the property of Renault Finance and they would need to be paid if there was a claim. The lady needed to check with her manager since this was the first time she’d been asked to quote for an electric car and the result was that yes, if the battery is damaged and there is a claim they will pay out to RF but if there is no claim against the car (i.e. battery only damage) then they would not. I am working on the assumption that if the battery goes pear shaped without being in an accident it is covered under the warranty and if it is damaged in an accident, there will be enough damage to the car shell that I will be making a claim so will be covered. Am I missing anything? Will get a more accurate quote (including the battery value) once I have a delivery date.

Note: The numbers on how much needs paying are from me, not RCI: I was taking the value of an Intens from the website before PICG.

The reply from RCI suggests that we need some kind of explicit confirmation from the insurer that the premium covers both the chassis and the battery; I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet. I can imagine a whole heap of insurers shrugging their shoulders rather than putting the effort into figuring out if they can do it. As is unsurprising before I got cut off from Admiral, the guy had to get his manager as he’d “never had to do an electric car before.”

I’ve replied to RCI asking them to get the customer service/marketing people involved so they can address this before any national marketing kicks in. We early adopters might put up with this sort of niggle, but I’m not sure the masses would. You can just imagine Jeremy Clarkson and his pair of goons gloating over the un-insure-ability of the Zoe.

Just got this from RCI:

What you have proposed is absolutely fine however you would need to notify your insurance provider that both a chassis and a battery are to be covered, as long as you do this that would be fine.

If you require anything further please dont hesitate to ask.

My original email:

It has been suggested that having an insurance premium for a total value of the cost of the Zoe (ignoring PICG) plus the battery price would be enough to satisfy the terms of the battery lease, without needing to explicitly have insurance for the battery.

Could you please confirm with someone at RCI whether this arrangement would satisfy the terms of the lease?