British In Poland

Congratulations - you're pregnant! So now you both are thinking about where to give birth - back home in the UK or here in Poland. For my wife it was an easy decision - Poland. Factors we considered were:

• quality of health-care in Poland/UK. Based purely on our experiences we rate Polish hospitals better than those in the UK - which would you rather choose from - old equipment but well-staffed, or shiny new equipment and buildings and 1 doctor per 30 patients? Plus you can always bribe the doctors/nurses in Poland and get grade A care and attention.
• closeness of family/relatives. My wife wanted her parents near by, and mine are always happy to visit Poland
• her gynaecologist would be on hand. A good gynaecologist was recommended to my wife and she saw him privately through-out her pregnancy. So it made sense to have the birth at the hospital where he worked

Worth noting that there are a few reasons to possibly not consider giving birth in Poland but they either didn't affect us or weren't important enough for us as factors:

• No fancy water births or anything "new age". Fathers have only been allowed to even attend births in the last couple of years here in Poland
• No caesareans on demand. I don't know what the rules are regarding caesarens in the UK but you can't pay or chose to have one in Poland. The doctor will organise one only if it is needed for medical reasons.
• Citizenship issues - do you need to have your child born in your home country for citizenship reasons? I am fully British so my children have the right to British citizenship regardless of where they are born (having checked with the British embassy)

My wife's pregnancy seemed to be taking too long but the doctor's were reluctant to induce her or do much about it. My Polish parents-in-law (who know the system only too well) asked to have a 'private chat' with the duty doctor. 10 minutes later the doctor (who had been hidden away in his office the whole time) couldn't do enough for us. It was almost like having a personal private doctor with us - constantly checking her, barking instructions to the nurses. I couldn't believe it. He even said I looked a bit pale and took me to a side room for some fresh air by the window and gave me some aspirin.

On one hand I think it's a terrible shame that medical staff are corrupt. The NHS isn't perfect back home but I would never expect staff would take bribes. On the other hand it's great if you have the money that you can effectively 'buy' good service. When someone you love is ill, is suffering or is in this type of situation it's fantastic to have the power to do something about it rather than just complain that there aren't enough doctors.

After the birth the hospital automatically sends notfication of the birth to the office for civil affairs (Urząd Stanu Civilnego) in the town the birth occurred so it's important that the hospital has your details correctly recorded. You must go to this office within 14 days to take care of the paperwork. I don't know what happens if you don't, but according to my wife it's something very terrible. At this stage they produce a birth certificate which they permanently keep. They issue you with 3 copies of a summary version (transkrypt aktu urodzenia). If you need more copies (because everyone always wants to keep your originals) you have to go back to that office and buy more.

So I went to the USC within 14 days under fear of death. I filled out the form giving the parents details and the chosen names of our daughter. Because we are married they wanted our Polish marriage certificate. The girl in the office wasn't happy with this though because it is missing some information on it (because British marriage certificates don't have all the info that Polish ones do - see my blog article in the link). Short story is that she refused to issue me the documents. My wife had to call and complain to the manager. We had to explain that there is nothing wrong with the documents or our translations, it's because we got married in Britain etc.. etc.. Next day I went back and collected our documents.

I have heard stories that the manager of the USC has the right to reject your chosen name for your baby (is this why everyone in Poland seems to be called Mariusz or Kasia?). I was expecting a battle as to why our daughter's chosen middle name was of Welsh origin but nothing was said at all.

I have never quite understood how Polish car insurance works, but now that the policy that came with my car is about to run out I have had to go and find out about it...

Here is what I know. If anyone has anything to add please leave a comment as always - I hope this article can be a work in progress.

The insurance is 'with the car', not 'with the person' as in the UK

What does this mean? Well in the UK the policy normally allows you and only you to drive your car unless you add specific named drivers. As a bonus you can normally drive other people's cars on 3rd party cover too. In Poland it is the other way around - anyone can drive your car if you bought a policy for it.
This is a bit confusing because in both cases the policies specify both the driver and the car.
The net result for us Brits though is two nice bonuses:

• Anyone can drive anyone's car in Poland (presuming the car is legal of course)
• You can take out insurance in your father-in-law's name to get a cheaper price (just like we used to do in the UK 20 years ago when we were 17 years old)

The vehicle must be insured continuously

In the UK your vehicle needs to be insured if it is on the road. If you don't have insurance there is nothing wrong with leaving the car in your garage for example. This is not the case in Poland!

IN POLAND YOUR VEHICLE MUST HAVE INSURANCE CONTINUOUSLY regardless of whether it is road-worthy or not or even if it's parked up on private property.
This means that the day you buy a Polish vehicle you have to make sure it has insurance. If a policy didn't come with the vehicle for some reason (e.g. because you imported the vehicle) then you have to go and buy insurance THE SAME DAY. I got bitten by this rule. The powers that be have 5 years to check and apparently they can fine you for it.

European Union Harmonisation

There are a number of directives to harmonise car insurance and driving across the EU. See the official Europa website for details. The basics are that any policy you buy in any EU country automatically gives you the minimum required cover in any other EU country (including Iceland, Norway and Switzerland). Green cards are no longer necessary inside the EU.

Levels of cover

In the UK we have 3 levels - 3rd party only, 3rd party fire and theft and fully comprehensive. In Poland from what I have seen they only have the compulsory minimum level of 3rd party (called "OC" which means Odpowiedzialności Cywilnej - civil liability) and fully comp (called "AC" - Autocasco). You can bundle into the package add-ons such as breakdown cover as they do in the UK.

Insurance that comes with the car when you buy it

This is the bit that I still don't fully understand. In the UK because the cover is with the driver the situation is clear cut - you have your policy, I have mine. Because as mentioned the cover in Poland is with the car, this means that when you buy a car from someone the policy is transferred to you. Well sort of. From what I can work out you have 30 days from when you buy the car to contact the insurance company and change the policy in to your name.

I didn't change my policy within 30 days and that caused me the following problems:

• I was then not able to change the insurance company until the policy expired. Luckily for me the previous owner had used a cheap company
• I had to keep the sale contract in the car with me when I drove so that I could show that the name on the insurance policy was the seller and that I had bought the vehicle.

Taking out a new policy

Like in the UK 20 years ago (presumably before people started buying their insurance directly or via the phone and then online) everyone in Poland buys their insurance from agents. You will see them everywhere. They seem almost as prevalent as "Apteka"s in the town centres... Just look for the big sign that says "Ubezpieczenie" (insurance) or the names/logos of the big insurance companies (PZU, Warta).
Recently some companies have been advertising on TV where you can buy direct. Examples include Link 4 and LibertyDirect. Fire up google.pl and you'll find them easily enough.

No claims-bonus - "zniżki"

In the UK we count how many years of NCB we have, in Poland they ask what percentage you have (e.g. 10, 20, 30%..). Otherwise it works as you would expect - you gain your NCB the longer you have a policy without accidents and you can transfer your NCB if you change your insurance company. You can normally also transfer your NCB from the UK if you produce an NCB certificate translated into Polish. Worth checking if you have a lot of NCB from the UK.


Worth knowing - the GOTCHAs

• You must carry your insurance certificate with you all the time
• A policy will auto-renew if you do nothing unlike in the UK where it's up to you to renew it. If you want to change your company make sure you write to them in good time
• You must have insurance even if your car is not on the road

Prices

Like in the UK the price varies a lot depending on each case. The two biggest factors in Poland appear to be the engine size and how much NCB (zniżki - "reduction") you have. But a pleasant suprise is that car insurance seems to be very cheap compared to the UK, especially for motorbikes.
For my Suzuki GSF1200 I paid £600/year in the UK for 3rd, F&T (including my UK NCB). In Poland I paid 135 złoty for OC and didn't even bother to tell them I had any NCB at all.

Remember too that they still haven't wised up to the trick of taking the insurance out in some else's name such as a parent or parent-in-law (choose someone old with a lot of NCB). But to do that the vehicle needs to have this other person listed as a co-owner on the registration document. I did that this morning with my father-in-law so will cover that in my next blog post.

Happy motoring...

As I have already posted in my blog about getting a karta pobytu, I found out that as I have Polish blood I may well have Polish citizenship and therefore was supposed to go to the Urząd Województwa in Kraków to present myself. For those of you in małopolskie go to:

room 354 on the 3rd floor
Urząd Województwa
ulica Basztowa 22
Krakow

It's a huge impressive old building not far from the main train station. The guy there was very very helpful and told me that the first thing I need to do (and one of the fundamentals for getting most things done in Poland regarding identity) is to get my birth certificate registered in Poland.
That is easier said than done because British birth certificates don't have all the information that goes on a Polish birth certificate. Also, I restored my Grandfather's name by Deed Poll a few years ago, and Polish law doesn't seem to recognise or have any provision for British Deed Polls.

After that it's a case of filing the application. You have to provide a passport photo and the kind of information needed for a karta pobytu such as proving you have means to live in Poland etc.. etc.. Of course you need to provide originals (with certified translations where appropriate) of all documents required to show you are of Polish descent. If you don't have originals (as in my case) then basically you just give them what you do have and explain the situation, it's then there task to investigate.

Simple cases where all documents are in order take a few months, most cases take over 2 years.