fraud? insurance company at the border

**seagull** · #1 2nd September 2007

Be careful or the following border. There is a doubtful insurance booths

Kiev (UKRAINE) --(E101)-- [border] --(E105)-- Moscow

Ukraine side;
There are some insurance booths with real insurance companies signs. They try to stop you. And says, "You need an insurance for Russia. At the border, they will check it!"

The insurance fee was;
$60/15days, $100/month, $160/2months (another tourist discounted the fee)

But there was no check at the Russian side.

And I asked the insurance company by calling and E-mail. The company was Ukraina insurance company. Their insurance covers Ukraine only. They had no information about the customer who bought the insurance at the border.

In Moscow, real car-insurance company
35 euro / 2 months for motorcycle

SEAGULL NOTE: border between UKRAINE and RUSSIA

**Mike** · #2 5th September 2007

Well they were right about one thing. You *do* need insurance for Russia and they *will* check it. They checked everything about three times, the three times I entered the country last year.

Sample price: One month's insurance at the Finland-St Petersburg border cost about £12 and is "not worth the paper it's printed on." Pretty much everyone agrees about that.

--Mike

**seagull** · #3 21st September 2007

Thanks for the info. I might be lucky because I was not checked the insurance at that border.

By the way,
I heard another fraud? insurance story. Another rider passed the border which is in southerneast of UKRAINE. He was asked to buy an insurance $400/? month. But he wondered it was strange to sell Russian insurance by Ukraine company at the Ukraine side. So he didn't buy it. He could buy the insurance at the Russian side and there was an insurance check at the border.

Anyway, we should be careful around the border, I think.

**Tingsborg** · #4 25th September 2007

I've countered the same thing when entering Ukraine from Poland heading towards L'Viv.
Thjey stopped us and explained that we needed insurance. We questioned why we should pay and showed our insurance papers from Sweden then he just let us go.
The funny thing was that we had handed over the passports to a lady behind a desk. She "simulated" that she was writing a lot of stuff in the passports. I just saw the top of her pencil behind the desk. When we got them back she hadn't wirtten a letter in them.

I feel quite confident that they tried to fraud us.

One year after we entered Ukraine again. Then we were more confident and didn't look so lost. Then it was no problem. The same guys didn't even show a sign to try to stop us.

**Redboots** · #5 25th September 2007

If you have a green card issued in the EU, it should have UA (Ukraine) as one of the listed countries so you do not need to buy insurance there.

People with a UK "green card" are stuffed because they don't usually get the real thing, just a document saying its a green card.
happened to the guy I was travelling with, but the insurance was only 30 USD.
I was OK with my French, green, green card.

John