The insurance premium is quoted in smallprint in the middle of page 4 of the Dutch pricelist, which you can download from:

http://www.renault.nl/showroom/brochures-en-prijslijsten/elektrische-autos/zoe/

Just click the blue bar below “PRIJSLIJSTEN”.

In the meantime I have asked my insurance agent to get a renewed offer, including cover for the battery.

Seems like Renault has put battery leasing in place to remove the perceived issue that people will have with battery life but have actually created a much larger issue for customers and insurers with the terms of the battery lease. They need to rethink this now or Zoe sales will stop dead in the water. I don’t think any of this information is provided at the time of order, so I think people could legitimately cancel their orders on the basis of not disclosing full details.

Yes, we have to insure the battery seperately. Renault Netherlands offers this additional insurance at EUR 9.35 (=GBP 7.95) per month, in case your regular insurance company fails to make an acceptable offer.

Congrats Willem!

Perhaps you can help us with an issue being discussed in the insurance thread: in the Netherlands do you have to have the battery insured separately? If so, have you found it difficult/easy to find an insurer?

I called Renault Insurance and they said that you need to insure the car at a price before the PICG (£20,043.33), plus the battery cost (£7,392) for a whopping total of £27,435.33, and that’s before metallic paint or anything else.

Renault Insurance couldn’t give me a quote as my postcode is too new, and they said they’d give me a call back after talking to the underwriters. I called Admiral, and the guy on the phone put me on hold to defer to his manager, and then after five minutes of waiting the call got cut off.

The (very helpful and pleasant) chap at Renault said it was unlikely that just adding the battery price to another insurer’s quote would be sufficient to cover the battery as per the terms of the lease agreement.

However he did say that simply insuring ZOE for the total sum of Car + Battery (at 7,392GBP) would be sufficient, then just informing the insurer what the extra amount is for.

This would be awesome if true. It’d also save the fine people at Renault from one hell of an ear-bending from yours truly.

Glad to see that the extra car value didn’t bump up the premium price as much as I would expect. I just gave it a go too (on QuoteMeHappy) and it didn’t change much either. Just spoken the a guy at PlugInsure and told me the same thing unfortunately. However he did say that simply insuring ZOE for the total sum of Car + Battery (at 7,392GBP) would be sufficient, then just informing the insurer what the extra amount is for. I do hope that this is indeed true!

PlugInsure no longer operate:

Unfortunately the insurers withdrew the electric scheme. We are unable to issue any new business via the website… We are currently in negotiations with other insurers to set up a new scheme.. In the meantime we can offer quotations via P F Spare. Please call our office on 01530 270574 to obtain a quotation.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

My best quote was from Admiral; upping the value of the car by £7,392 didn’t make any noticeable difference to the insurance premium, but this still won’t explicitly cover the battery, and I’m almost 100% certain that no regular car insurer will have the processes and paperwork in place to insure a battery separately. You only have to look at how few have web forms that acknowledge the existence of electric cars to realise their backend IT system won’t handle this use case.

I may give Admiral and Renault Insurance a call after lunch when less people are likely to be phoning them.

CAP have already stated the battery is valued new at £7392 so that matches.

I’ve emailed PlugInsure and so far all they’ve said is ‘ring us for a quote’ but the way the email reply was worded suggests they are an insurance broker, not an insurer themselves. I’ve pointed out that the Zoe T&Cs require the battery to be insured with the same company as the car and whether they are able to filter the quotes they offer based on this criteria.

I’ve had the best quotes so far from QuoteMeHappy so I’ll also call and ask them about the battery. For reference they were in the £700 range while my current car (8 year old Toyota Aygo) costs me £450 to insure. Given the difference in the value of the cars I don’t actually think £700 odd is a bad price for me (my Aygo is worth about £3000 and even new it is only £8000)

Got this reply. I’ll let you know what else I find out.

Thank you for your call with regards to Renault ZE Insurance, as discussed the insured value of the battery for the Zoe is £7392.00. With regards to obtaining further information on ZE insurance the following phone number is posted on the Renault website, 0800 5003108. An advisor at Renault should be able to answer any queries you may have with regards to insurance.