green cards trouble kosovo-montenegro-albania
 

hi,

another balcans question. just had a call from my insurance guy saying it's no longer possible to extend my greencard for kosovo-albania-montenegro. i suppose that means buying insurance at the border, but :

-is it checked frequently? i suppose you get fined for not having it? not that i want to avoid buying it, but...
-can you get it on the smaller borders? my expierence in the region is that they are... eh... rather basivly equipped (remember a guy looking for stamp for half an hour)

i intend to enter
-kosovo via rozaje-pec or kuciste-pec road
-montenegro coming from croatia via gacko-krstac road
-albania: no idea. could be muriqani from montenegro, could be prizren-kukes road from kosovo, could even be sveti naum-pogradec from macedonia...still working on the route.

thx
g

I had to buy insurance at the Montenegro border in september last year, was around 10Euro. Didn't really have a choice in the matter.

They checked my green card at the border into Albania from Macedonia - but mine is valid. I didn't go through Kosovo precisely because I didn't know what the situation was with being able to buy it at the border (so took a very beautiful route through a national park - highly recommend it but can't remember the name of it!).

Crossing into Montenegro in a couple of days, will let you know what they say, but again as far as I know my green card is valid.

Laura

It's pot-luck, but they usually check.

I think the last time through, I wasn't checked in Crotia or Serbia. Did get checked in Montenegro and Bosnia.

I have heard Kosovo is pretty hard to avoid as they know basically nobodies insurance covers them there!

Macedonia is the expensive one for the countries you have mentioned I think.

If its anything like Bosnia, they enforce it on the border although you might avoid it on a smaller border crossing. We missed the insurance huts but got turned back by the border guards. It was pretty cheap and very quick. As we didn't have an incidents, we didn't claim so don't know if its worth anything in the event of a crash.

Didn't even give my European cover a second thought until mentioned on here. I called my insurance company and he confirmed that I would be covered in the countries I asked about Serbia and he said no problem and would send a green card out to stating so.
I didn't realise green cards were still being used.

Regarding Kosovo,
you have no option but to buy insurance at the border. The cost last August was 20euro for 15day coverage (and you can't get for less days).
In Albania (August 07) green card was valid and I didn't have to pay for insurance but you pay a tourist tax which for Greek citizens was 10euro per person. Leaving the country I also had to pay 1euro per person for something (I didn't really understand why).
In Montenegro green card was valid (at least) until last August I was there. They have always checked on the Pec -Rojaze crossing. Entering Croatia they sometimes do check for green card.
If you need info on the route at least Pec-Rozaje-Podgorica you could have a look.
Croatia -* Austria - Germany - Summer 2008

Who you with out of curiousity? I am about to renew mine for my bike in london. I wish my company were so simple with this stuff!!

+1
John933

Border insurance is not that high and if you are stop and no green card...that can cost you 10times more...play safe,get insurance at the border.

Safe ride Kawazoki