insuring an out of province trailer

[giro53]

Well, we found our Bigfoot, it is in BC. We are in Quebec more than 4900 km away. Quebec will not register a vehicle without a Quebec inspection, and my insurance co. will not insure without a registration. Oh woe is we! We thought we could buy the trailer in BC in August and then slowly make our way home via California and Tennessee by March. I'm sure we are not the first to do this, has any one got any ideas?
thx

[Orcus79]

Look into temporary transit permits and insurance. You have a firm time line to get the trailer inspected and insured in quebec, but may be what you have to do.

Also contact ICBC and see if they have suggestions. Here is Sask I know you can get a short term temporary permit for such things.

[Brian B-P]

Although it is not an Escape trailer, you might check with Escape Trailer Industries and see if they have any suggestions. They are in B.C., and sell trailers (new and used) to people from other provinces routinely, so they have likely encountered this situation before.

While Escape immediately comes to mind to me because I know they some used trailers, BigfootRV itself (the current version of the company which was formed in 2010, not the one that made your a 2008 trailer) is in B.C. as well, and so may also have applicable experience.

[tartosuc]

Check with Desjardins,
They were the only one that would insure me for a car a brought back from alberta.

You can also register/insured the trailer localy in bc for 6months and then do transfers when you are in quebec

[giro53]

Will I be able to (as a non resident) register it in BC? That would solve alot of problems if I could register and insure it there.

[tartosuc]

i was able to do it in alberta. insurance was really expensive...

find the bc dmv website and call them...

but i would call desjardin first.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by giro53

Will I be able to (as a non resident) register it in BC?

I doubt it, but ICBC | Registering a vehicle in B.C. doesn't say anything about a residency requirement - it does refer additional questions to Autoplan, the insurance system which everyone in BC is forced to use: ICBC | Find a broker

[Glenn Baglo]

Rather than "forced to use" I would say "is required for basic insurance". After all, you could move to Alberta. Although I could buy my additional coverage from a private company, I choose to get all my car insurance through ICBC. For the trailer, it costs about $90 for the license tag and basic insurance. The comprehensive, collision and third party liability is from a private company for $230.

Discussion of ICBC versus private insurance would lead to another dog thread. I don't want a private, for profit company putting the bite on me.

[giro53]

We ended up registering it and insuring it for 3 months in BC.(ICBC) They did not require us to be a resident of BC but of course we had to pay all the BC taxes. Desjardins would not look at us unless our car was also insured with them. We did end up returning to Quebec after spending a month playing around in the BC mountains. It was no problem transferring the registration to Quebec when we returned. Had to have provincial inspection and then just requested that they transfer our registration from BC to Quebec. No additional taxes were asked for.
Ron

[Roy in TO]

I'm happy it worked out for you Ron.
Your story is worthy of a letter to your local representative of the QC government, with copies to the Minister for Revenue, Minister for Transport and your insurance company. They may not be interested in your inconvenience, the loss of $$ may get enough attention to consider changing the system.

[giro53]

My insurance co is well aware of it. I also check with insurance underwriters of Canada and they said that there was really no legal reason an insurance co could not insure. However, as far as the Qc govt goes I am happy to have not been asked to pay the taxes. It is my understanding that should the situation have been reversed and I was bringing it to BC, BC would have asked for provincial BC taxes but since Qc did not ask it saved a lot of hassle trying to collect the tax paid back from BC. In Qc the insurance is handled by private companies and as such it was not really the prov govt that created the problem. My insure co Aviva, even has offices across Canada but I tried unsuccessfully to have them insure. In the end I am thankful to BC for allowing me to register the trailer there and was very tempted not to reregister it back in Qc but... the law says... so I did.