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.

The gentleman at Renault Insurance called me back and said he’d asked their “affinity manager” (who deals with the Renault relationship) to get a Renault Customer Services manager to call me about the experience of discovering this insurance ballache. I’m hoping that I can make it clear that this is a pitfall that will hit every Zoe owner, whether they realise it or not.

I don’t hold out much hope for the Zoe launch, as this is the sort of decision that would take an age to remedy – a change in the T&Cs would dramatically change the risk model they’ve agreed to, and so would need the kind of high-level sign-off that won’t come quickly.

Thank you Deejay, thats great news! No need to faf with an extra insurance and hopefully much less cost too. To be safe I may also ask for this in writing from Renault and RCI.

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 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.