Car Insurance
Do I need a car insurance to drive through Africa?
No, that is the short answer to this tricky question. That may come to a surprise because it is totally the opposite from what everybody else has tell you so far. Moreover, it is exactly the contrary than everybody else will continue responding to you. Now, the next time somebody tells you that you need an insurance to drive through Africa, you should follow up with the next question: "How many Africans do you think drive with a car insurance?". When you hear the response to this second question, you will know how reliable was the answer to the first question and how seriously you need to take it.
Our short answer to the first question is 'No', but you should not take our word for it. There is not a 100% correct answer to this question. Whether you get a car insurance or not, there will always be pros and cons. So we highly advise you read the long answer.
We suggest you always follow up the first question with the second question. so, in order to be consistent, we should be expected to provide an answer to the second question: "how many Africans drive with a car insurance". Well, we need to admit we do not know for a fact, but I have the strong guess that very, very few... call me cynical but, I am sorry, after having driven through Africa the last several months, I do not there there is anything anybody can say to convince me a significant of African drivers have a car insurance. As a matter of fact, you see many cars in Africa. There are certainly not in the best, most reliable condition, but they still drive them around. I will then start argueing, if the government is so concerned with safety that they require a car insurance, why do they allow them with such crappy cars to begin with? C'mon, those cars are a wheeled safety threat! those cars are 20+ years old and are about to fall apart any time.
Anyway, let's pretend we accept African governments are inconsistent and require by law to sign a car insurance, while they have no concern about 20+ old cars moving around. now, many people in Africa do not have money to buy a tooth brush. So... what? they have money to buy a car insurance? I can think myself of two good answers to this question: 1) "C'mon, most people have weird priorities". 2) "Well, most people may just disregard the law and continue driving without insurance".
In my opinion, 2) is a stronger argument than 1) since, no mattee how messed up priorities some people may have, I simply do not see much people would even have enough money to pay a car insurance; not the kind of expensive insurance they want me to buy. I will reason that with an example. When we entered Africa, we were also wondering if and where we would need a car insurance. For the reasons outline above, we were guessing Western and Central Africa was just too poor to make car insurance mandatory. Now, we thought, if there is a country where insurance is required, that for sure would be South Africa. South Africa is accepted to be the most developed country in Africa. South Africa very easily feels like the UK, Australia or New Zealand: a place of law and order. Many people will disagree with this statement and scream South Africa is very dangerous and there is no law or order. Anyway, people in South Africa have money, education and discipline to pay for an insurance. Yet, to our surprise, we know now for a fact: car insurance is optional in South Africa. Just the other day, we were discussing this. It seems weird car insurance is optional in South Africa. But maybe we should look at this differently. I did not want to say it, but when I mentioned before people in South Africa have money to pay a car insurance, I was actually thinking 'white' people... Now, this is a very touchy issue in South Africa. Let's face it, if car insurance becomes mandatory in South Africa, many black people will not be able to continue driving legally, because they simply will not be able to afford the expense. This is leading us to a very complicated, big debate, which is not really useful to our little car insurance dilema. staying away from big racial tension and controversies, it is undeniable that the polital trend in south Africa is anything but to make it impossible to most black people to continue drive under the law. So, after all, I think it should not come to a surprise, car insurance is just optional in South Africa. Consequently, I seriously doubt it is mandatory in other African countries.
"it really does not matter if 'it' is required by law or not. What matters is whether 'you' believe or are ready to believe it is required by law".
It may still be argued that one thing is whether the law requires car insurance, another very different is whether the people follow the law. This takes us to the key of the argument: after all, it really does not matter if 'it' is required by law or not. What matters is whether 'you' believe or are ready to believe it is required by law. This is a very, very important principle to always keep in mind when traveling through Africa. i purposedly used the pronoun 'it' instead of specifically referring to car insurance, because this very important principle applies to just about anything: carnet de passage, seat belts, etc.
t will go back to this issue in a minute, but let me first ask a quick question. If we are willing to accept that the law in most African countries requires an insurance to drive, but most Africans I just choose to continue driving without insurance, why is it that they enforce the law on me and do not on them??? Why do they look away when the African driver passes through the checkpoint, but give me hell when I am not able to show them anything they will consider valid insurance. Moreover, interestingly, no matter what I show them, they will always say it is not valid. Hmmm... what do we make of that? C'mon, we are not a safety issue! We, 'the white tourists' are just a few. if all the white tourists drive around without insurance, we are so few that would still not be a safety concern. Now, if just a small fraction of local drivers drive without insurance, that is not just a safety concerned, but a public threat. I am serious, these people drive like mad!
Let's be clear here and start pointing fingers. Who am I referring to when I talk about 'they'?: the police of course! Call them security agents, if you prefer, but that still does not explain why they look away when a local drives without insurance (assuming car insurance is obligatory), but give me hell when I am not able to produce anything he considers proof of valid insurance. Because let's get this straight; this is strictly about being able to drive through Africa without problems. In other words, whether you should have a car insurance or not while driving through Africa, is to avoid running into problems at the security checkpoints, like getting fined or being arrested (but not problems like getting hell because you do not have a good insurance, because, let's face it, no matter what you decide, you can buy whatever insurance gives you more guarantees, they will still tell you it is not valid in that particular country).
So, again, let me be clear, the issue here is what do you need to do that will allow you drive through Africa without major problems. Because
I am not going to accept to make of this a moral question. This is not about any moral obligation of having an insurance in order to drive. Whether you buy an insurance or not, nothing is going to change: Do not be a fool, your money is going straight to some fat butt. Or, do you really think, if you have an accident, your insurance is going to do anything for you or for the people you hurt? I spoke with an insurance agent and he told me very clearly: "no insurance will cover you in Africa". They may take your money, but, if anything happens, they will not provide any assistance. So, you may buy an insurance, but no matter what you do, you will effectively be still without insurance in Africa. So that is as much as your moral will do for you.
You probably have noticed where I am taking my argument: you need to figure out how to get through those tricky checkpoints without major problems, but you need to understand that what they want to see is not a valid insurance. Yes! what they want to see is your money!: money, money, money... It is all about your money. Similarly, they do not want to see the carnet de passage; what they want to see is your money! They do not want to see you are wearing your seat belt; they want to see your money! Try to accept it, if you are driving through that checkpoint at the time a corrupt officer is on shift, you may have a valid insurance, you may have the carnet de passage, you may be wearing your seat belt, it does not matter, you can be sure, that corrupt officer is going to give you hell. As you travel through Africa it is really very important for you to remember: it does not matter what exactly the local law says. What matters is what you believe or are ready to believe the law says. The issue is the corrupt agent objective is to get your money and the way he is going to be able to get some money from you is by making you believe you broke the law. He really does not need that you actually brake the law. if you think you did, that is good enough for him or her.
The problem here is that Westeners we are so completely used to be subject to so many laws, rules and requirements: we need to buy an car insurance in order to be allowed to drive a car. We need to pass a test in order to get the license required to be allowed to drive a car. We need to have some form of identification, etc. Moreover, the western mind assumes with absolutely no doubt at all anything said by a security agent is completely true. The western mind does not even start to entertain the slightest thought that anything said by a security agent may not be totally true. That is our main weakness, because African security officers do lie. And that is our main problem, because African security officers know ourweakness and exploit it.
The strategy of the corrupt agent is clear and simple: they will try to find anything to make you believe you are not complying with the law. They will ask you for an endless number of documents to see if there is anything they can question. They will inspect your car trying to find something that does not look right. It does not matter whether everything is correct or not. It does not even matter if the corrupt officer understands everything is in order or is able to realize something is not correct. The goal is to make you believe something is not in accordance with the law: where what he says is the law may not be true and have no similarity or whatsoever with what the local law actually says. but, c'mon, do you have any clue at all of what the local law really says? Then, how do you expect to argue with him about the local law?
If you think about it, you may agree with me, that is why car insurance is such a sexy spot for a corrupt officer to attack: any other document is foreign to him. Your passport, your visa, your driver's license, you car's registration papers (aka. 'carte gris'), your carnet de passage, your car's technical sheet, etc. are all documents you know much better than him, so he is not going to be in a good position to argue about them to you. You may be lucky and he may not be smart enough and waste his energies and ruin his credibility argueing with you about anything, starting with the first thing you hand to him. He may be stupid enough to argue there is something wrong with your passport or your driver's license. By the time you get to something that actually is not quite right with, say, your car's registration papers, his credibility will be so low, you will both have arrived to the conclusion he is just so full of it, that you will be able to just ignore him.
For example, in Cameroon (of course it had to be in Cameroon; the country with the most corrupt security agents) we had an officer complain to us because our car's inside light would not work. As we ignored her, she next pointed out we needed to watch out because Alia's driver's license was soon to expire. This happened in October 2015 and Alia's driver's license was to expire in 2018!! At this point, she may have found there was actually something wrong with one of our papers: we could have had an invalid insurance and, yet, she had not been able to say anything about it, as her credibility was already so low, we had just ignore her and get away with it.
You may, however, be unlucky and run into a smart corrupt officer, who will save his best bullets for your weakest points. If he cannot find anything wrong with your car or paperwork, his best bet will be to attack your car insurance. You know better your passport, car's registration papers, driver's license, etc. so he will not have a good position any of that, but the car insurance... The can insurance, that one he can argue against, He can say it is not valid in his country. He can pretend it does not meet the legal requirements. Now, what do you know about the country's legal requirements, so how are you going to argue that. Well, the critical issue here is to understand you have to argue that no matter what. Once more, it does not matter whether you have any certainty or none, whether your insurance is good or not: you just need to state your insurance is good and you know that for a fact, period.
Now, if you do not argue that, the next thing you know is you are begging that 'asshole' to show any mercy on you and accept to resolve the matter in a 'friendly' manner. If you do not argue that, he will have you right where he wanted. If he is able to convince you there is something wrong with your paperwork, the next question to discuss between the two of you is how much money are you going to give him to sort out the 'problem'. In fact you can be sure he will no waste anybody's time to immediately introduce the topic by saying: "Hmmm... this is a problem, so ...what are you going to do now?". Well, that would be more Cameroon style, where the police is rather harsh. In Nigeria they are more gracious and would say: "Apologies accepted! ...but you need to show appreciation" (if they find you without the seat belt on).
Let us give an example. We bought an insurance when we first entered Senegal. It was for two months and supposed to cover most Western Africa. We had previously purchased an insurance in Mauritania, but that was only valid in Mauritania. it was a one-month minimum length insurance and we only spent five days in Mauritania, so it was really a rip-off, but we have been told, even from the Spanish embassy, it was required. We also got the insurance from a gendarme, sitting in his governmental office at the border, so that helped make the point more credible. it was, however, disappointing that nobody ever asked us about the insurance while we were in Mauritania.
In Senegal it was different; we had just heard from regular people we needed an insurance for Western Africa. Then, when we got to the Senegalese side of the Djalma border, we found some guy in a FC Barcelona shirt offering 'help' resolving all the bureaucratic procedures (obviously hoping he will get some money in return at the end). We already knew it is a very bad idea to accept any 'help' from these fake helpers, but they will just not leave you alone. He agreed and insisted we should buy a car insurance. But then he took us to this tent, where some guy in casual clothes went on explaining what insurances he could sell us. To our disbelieve, he told us the 'carte brun' was only valid in a couple of countries. But, if we really wanted an insurance for most Western Africa, he could provide us with one that would do it. Today, I regret we ended up buying two months of that insurance: bad idea! As a matter of fact, in Senegal, only once (in Dakar) were we asked to show proof of insurance. Then we continue through Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast and nobody ever asked us for car insurance (it seemed to us the police was overall less corrupt in Western Africa, but matters get worse as you reach Togo, to reach its highest point in Cameroon and Gabon. It improves again in both Congos, but finds one more spike in Angola). When we got to Ghana, we were displeased learning the ridiculous number of checkpoints we were stopped at. At least, it was easy to go through them fairly quickly. Then, as we were one night getting close to Kumassi, we were stopped once more by an officer: he jumped right away to ask us for proof of insurance. He exclaimed: where is your insurance? I should see all your paperwork! This came to a surprise to us; such an aggresive introduction. Until then, from Morocco to Ivory Coast and Ghana so far, they had always first asked for driver's license, passports, car registration, visas or car's technical sheet. But the guy went straight for the car insurance; it was the first time since Dakar! In our confusion, we went through a moment of indecision: Alia thought it would be better we show him our European car insurance green card. I thought we should give him the Senegalese insurance, as it was supposed to be valid for Ghana and I was not that sure about the European. I handed him our Senegalese insurance, but he gave us a very strange look of his face and immediately rejected it: "What is this???, this is not valid here!". So, we showed him our European insurance. He looked less surprised about that one, as if he had seen some of those European car insurance green cards before. Probably that was what he was expecting to receive from us. Needless to say, he still rejected it: "no, this is not valid here". I had some concerned he might actually be right about that, but I still argued: "of course it is valid!". He insisted it was not valid, but I stayed firm and proceeded to explain: "look, this is the European car insurance green card. This is an international insurance; you see it is written in English? This insurance is valid everywhere". The guy understood I was not going to back off and he also knows he is not supposed to harass or bother the tourists. So, he accepted to give up: "OK, I will let you go for this time, but... do you have something for me?". We were really unhappy and rather outraged as we did not expect such a grotesque attempt to extort money from us (we were so naive! we had no clue what was coming our way, or, better said, what way we were heading). So, we made it very clear we were going to give him absolutely nothing. Eventually, he let us go. To the naive, it may come to a surprise he actually never bothered to go through any of our other documents (neither passports, driver's license, visas, etc.), even after he had started saying he needed to see all our papers. There is little doubt to me he had guessed if he could not get any money attacking our car insurance, he was not going to get anything from the rest of our paperwork.
What I am not sure about is what had happened if we had not had our Senegalese car insurance when we were asked for it in Dakar. The problem there is that we do not know if the Senegalese law requires the purchase of car insurance. It is true, in the battle between the traveler and the corrupt security agent, the traveler's weakest point is his or her ignorance of the local laws. but is there anything at all playing in his or her favor. Yes! you are a tourist. As much as prefer to be recognized as a traveller, there some advantages in being labelled as a 'tourist'. Tourist are wanted and welcomed in most countries; at least in most African countries. So, most governments welcome and appreciate tourists and their money. Therefore, they tell and instruct their security forces to take care and cherish tourists. This may have not always been the case, but, today, even countries like Angola where tourists used to ge disregarded as tourism money was probably considered peanuts, make it clear, probably now that oil prices have collapsed, they want and welcome tourists and their money. Very often we saw an officer explaining his collegue we were tourists and therefore he should not bother us. That happened especially in both Congo's and Angola. I guess because the police used to be more corrupt in these countries, and there are still agents that seem to struggle and need constantly be reminded of the new instruction to charm the tourists.
so, if everything else is against you, at least you should take advantage of the one thing that play in your favor. Think about it! you may even do an infraction, and still get away with it. In Namibe (Angola) we were stopped at a checkpoint and learned one of our lights was not working. Angolan police has quite a bad reputation and, although it now seems much better, there is still quite a bit of it left. The guy quickly hinted we would have to write us ticket. In returned we hinted we were not going to accept it. We explained it was not cool nor reasonable to fine us after the country's horrible dirt roads had screwed up our car's electrical system. The guy finally let us go. He realized we were not going to bribe him, so all what he could have done was to go ahead and write us a ticket. He had screwed us up, but he had nothing to win there, as no money had gone for him. Perhaps it may have turned ugly for him, because he was bothering some tourists.
Something similar happened to us leaving Kinshasa. We were at a traffic light, when suddenly we saw an officer rushing to us. He complained we had ran the light. We knew we had not. We actually got rather angry and made it very clear we were not going to accept any fine. He kept trying to explain what had been our violation, but as we did not stop shaking our heads, he asked us to follow him to the police station. We explained we werenot going anywhere with him. He then threatened to call his captain and asked us if we wanted him to do so. We replied: "Absolutely!" we really were not having any patience and hated the time we were wasting, so really appreciated we were expediting some resolution to the conflict. He really did not expect we would react so enthusiastically to his threat. He laught. Game was over. It was clearly a nervous laugh. He did not know what to do next. He knew it would turn bad for him if he called his captain. I am sure it had turn bad for him regardless of whether we had or we had not run the light. If we had run the light, we had still denied it. I am sure he had then got hell for harrasing and trying to extort money from some tourist. He knew it and that is why he let us go. Though not without first asking if we would give him something.
For what countries should I get a car insurance?
In Western Africa, if I had a second chance, I would probably still get an insurance for Mauritania; even if I think it is a rip off. i am not sure if I would buy it for Senegal, though; certainly not from that guy in his tent. I also do know I would not get anything after Senegal. The last time we bought an insurance for Western Africa and it prove to be useless. So, I would not bother again. They barely asked for it and when they did it was only hoping to get some money. But when we refused, they let us go.
It my opinion, it should not come to a surprise they put more pressure on this issue in Mauritania and Senegal. I do not think it is a coincidence these two countries are the closes to Europe, They are very familiarized with Europeans, as they see them very often. So they know well how natural it is for a European to be required to buy an car insurance. Clearly, they do not want to miss the chance to make business out of it, because certainly nobody will complain about being required to get an insurance.
