Automobile accidents with foreign vehicles

Who do you apply to for compensation?
Hereafter, we describe the various types of cases, pointing out that in any case legal assistance is absolutely recommended from the earliest stages to prevent formulating requests improperly and/or letting the statute of limitations run out.

1 – ACCIDENTS IN ITALY BETWEEN VEHICLES OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
• Request of damages by the owner of the vehicle with Italian license plate for accident with a vehicle with a foreign license plate: application is made to the UCI (Italian Central Office), the national office that handles issues related to compensation for damages caused in Italy by foreign vehicles.
If the foreign vehicle is uninsured, the application is made, instead, to the Fund for Guarantee of Road Accident Victims.
If the insurance company of the foreign vehicle is not among the countries participating in the Green Card system (see list of countries) the suit is brought directly against the owner and/or driver of the vehicle and/or the insurance company of the vehicle.
• Requests of damage by the owner of the vehicle with foreign license plate for accident with a vehicle with Italian license plate: to the insurance company of the vehicle with Italian license plate.
If the Italian vehicle is uninsured, the application is made, instead, to the Fund for Guarantee of Road Accident Victims.
• Requests of damaged by the owner of the vehicle with foreign license plate for accident with another vehicle with foreign license plate:
Application is made to the UCI (Italian Central Office)
• IMPORTANT! Expiry of right to compensation
For suits to be brought before the Italian judge for automobile accidents in Italy, it is important to remember at all times that the right to compensation for damage to the vehicle expires after two years.
In case of accident with injuries, the terms of expiration for compensation are the longer ones envisaged by the criminal law code for the corresponding criminal cases.

2 – ACCIDENTS ABROAD
• In countries that participate in the Green Card system (see list), and if the guilty vehicle is registered and insured in an EEC country or Switzerland.
The out-of-court demand can be presented in Italy, first to ISVAP, to obtain the details of the correspondent insurance company for the insurance of the vehicle that caused the damage. If there is no correspondent in Italy or if, having found the insurance company, the latter does not provide a motivated response to the request for damages within three months of its presentation, the damaged party can contact CONSAP SPA, the Indemnity Service Organization.
Alternatively, it is always possible to bring suit directly against the insurance company of the vehicle responsible (that will in any case be done if we are forced to resort to the courts, as neither Consap, nor the correspondent are – as things not stand – attributed with passive legitimacy before the judicial authorities)
• In the other cases
The request should be sent to the insurance company and/or owner and/or driver of the vehicle causing the damage.
If the vehicle that caused the damage was registered in a country other than the one in which the accident occurred, the request should be sent to the office of the country in which it occurred.
• Accident with unidentified vehicle in an EEC country
The request can be made in Italy to CONSAP SPA Indemnity Service Organization
• Accident abroad with another Italian vehicle
In this case you can follow the ordinary rules as if the accident had happened in Italy.
• IMPORTANT! Expiry of right to compensation.
It is good to know that for accidents abroad, even when the Italian judge has jurisdiction (as in the case of an accident abroad between vehicles of Italian citizens) the terms of expiration of the country in which the accident occurred apply, which may be even less than the two years envisaged in Italy.
3 – JURISDICTION
If the out-of-court approach does not work, the lawsuit must always be brought before the court in the country in which the event occurred, or in which the defendant, or one of them, has residence or business premises

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