The green card is over. Starting this Monday, April 1, it will no longer be mandatory to have the insurance certificate and the associated sticker to stick behind the windshield each year.
With the establishment of the Insured Vehicle File (FVA), authorities will be able to directly verify whether a vehicle is adequately insured based on the registration number.
Consult the file of insured vehicles
As a motorist, it is also possible to check that your vehicle is registered in this database through this link. If this is not the case, you should contact your insurer as soon as possible to correct the error.
All you have to do is enter your registration number with the form number that appears on the registration document (on the outside, under the inscription “registration certificate” and its translations). For plates prior to 2009, the last six characters of the VIN code must be entered, in addition to the plate.
Useful information to take with you
The objective of this dematerialization remains to facilitate police checks, since nearly 680,000 vehicles are not insured in France. The next step should be to verify this status during an automated radar check. The plate, necessarily flashed, could then be checked at the FVA and alert the offender, or even sanction, a possible lack of insurance.
On the other hand, in the event of an accident, nothing changes. You will always have to complete a report (or its dematerialized version, the electronic report). But without a green card, you may have some difficulty finding some useful information, such as the name of your insurer and its contract number. You can also add the assistance telephone number that usually appears on the green card. So remember to write them down on your smartphone or on a paper document to leave, for example, in the glove compartment.
The lines in the “insurance” portion of the report also request the green card number and the validity period of the insurance certificate. Information that, therefore, will no longer be necessary to indicate in this document.
In the event of a change in insurance or contract renewal, you will receive a “note from the insured vehicle”, as can be seen in the following example provided by the online insurer Leocare. In fact, insurers have 72 hours to introduce this change in the FVA. Therefore, this document will allow you to demonstrate that you are properly insured in the event of an inspection.
And for a trip abroad?
If you drive your vehicle abroad, “the International Motor Insurance Card, formerly called ‘green card’, will be white. It can be delivered electronically, but must be printed,” explains Christophe Dandois, co-founder of Leocare.
Please note that starting January 1, 2025, “all countries will have to accept this document to be presented on a smartphone. No one will be able to ask you to print this document anymore,” he adds.
In Europe (EU countries + Switzerland, Andorra, Serbia, Iceland, Norway, Bosnia-Herzegovina, United Kingdom, Montenegro and Liechtenstein), registration constitutes a presumption of insurance.
If in doubt, or if you are going to another country, you can contact your insurer to ensure that you are well covered by taking out, for example, border insurance before or upon entering that country.
Same recommendation as when driving in France, in case of an accident remember to have the main information at hand to contact your insurer.
Source: BFM TV
