You were driving your UK-registered car down to your house in the Dordogne, or you were cycling to the boulangerie outside Paris, when another vehicle hit you. You are hurt, your car is a write-off, and within days letters start arriving in French from an insurer you have never heard of, offering money. This guide explains, for a British reader, how France pays road accident victims after Brexit: a protective statute from 1985, applied through the Insurance Code, that forces the liable driver’s insurer to make you a reasoned compensation offer on a strict timetable, that punishes late or derisory offers, and that gives you ten years from medical stabilisation to go to court. Every deadline below is taken from a text read on Légifrance on 18 October 2026 or from a Court of Cassation decision read in full for this article, with the official link beside it. French terms are explained at first use: the constat amiable is the joint accident report form, the consolidation is the date your injuries stabilise, the Fonds de garantie (FGAO) is the guarantee fund that pays when the driver who hit you is unknown or uninsured, and the tribunal judiciaire is the ordinary civil court.

I. Who pays for a British road victim in France and what the insurer owes you

A. The insurer, the guarantee fund and your UK cover: who pays in each scenario

The starting point is simple and it applies to you exactly as it applies to a French resident. The insurance section of the French Insurance Code covers, in the words of article L211-8, victims of a traffic accident involving a motor vehicle and its trailers, with only railways and trams on their own tracks excluded. A British motorist, cyclist, motorcyclist or pedestrian hurt on a French road is a victim within that definition from the moment a motor vehicle is involved, whether the vehicle that hit you is French-registered, British-registered or from anywhere else. The Court of Cassation reads that definition strictly: in a decision of 15 February 2024 (Second Civil Chamber, no. 21-22.319), it recalled that the statute applies to victims of a traffic accident involving a motor vehicle, and held that an event deliberately caused by the driver, with no element of chance, is not an accident within the meaning of the text. Deliberate ramming is therefore outside the scheme; a genuine collision, even a serious one, is inside it.

In the standard case, the insurer of the liable vehicle pays. Your own position as a British driver is protected on the UK side too: the British government confirms that all UK vehicle insurance provides the minimum third-party cover for driving in the European Union, and that you do not need to carry a green card when driving in the EU, although you must show your green card if you are involved in an accident, according to GOV.UK guidance on driving abroad. In practice that means a UK insurer cannot tell you that your policy stopped at Dover: if your car is insured in Britain, third-party liability in France is covered, and the French compensation machinery described below applies to your claim.

Two harder scenarios have dedicated answers. If the driver who hit you drove off or was uninsured, the guarantee fund under article L421-1 of the Insurance Code compensates bodily injury where the person responsible is unknown, or where the person responsible is identified but not insured, apart from narrow statutory exemptions from the insurance duty. The fund’s own decisions confirm how central this safety net is. On 20 January 2022, in a case where the fund sought reimbursement from the uninsured driver after paying the victim, the Court of Cassation held (Second Civil Chamber, no. 20-15.717): « Il résulte de l’article 2226 du code civil que l’action en responsabilité, née à raison d’un événement ayant entraîné un dommage corporel, se prescrit par dix ans à compter de la date de la consolidation du dommage, initial ou aggravé, de la victime directe ou indirecte des préjudices. Il s’ensuit que l’action subrogatoire du FGAO en remboursement des sommes versées à la victime est soumise à la même règle. » In English: article 2226 of the Civil Code gives ten years from consolidation of the initial or aggravated injury for bodily-injury claims, and the fund’s recovery claim against the driver follows the same rule. If you are the victim, the practical message is that a hit-and-run or an uninsured driver does not leave you without a payer: the fund steps in for your bodily injury, and property damage can follow within statutory limits once bodily injury exists.

If liability itself is disputed — the other driver says you jumped the lights, or two insurers blame each other — the insurer cannot simply go silent. Article L211-9 of the Insurance Code provides that where liability is rejected or not clearly established, or where the loss is not yet fully quantified, the insurer must give a reasoned reply to the points raised in the claim within the same three-month period that applies to straightforward cases. That reasoned reply is your first foothold: it tells you exactly which facts the insurer contests, so you can answer with evidence rather than argue in the dark. Drivers should note the parallel with criminal exposure: if drink was involved on your side, the criminal case follows its own track, explained in our guide to drink-driving limits, roadside tests and licence loss in France after Brexit.

B. The first days after the crash: the constat, the five-day notice and the medical proof

French claims are won or lost in the first week, on paper. At the scene, fill in the constat amiable, the standard joint report form, with the other driver: tick the boxes, draw the sketch, both sign, each keep a copy. If the other driver refuses or has fled, call the police or gendarmerie and make sure a report exists. Take photographs of positions, plates, damage and injuries, and keep the names of witnesses. The official victim guide on service-public.fr on compensation for road bodily injury lists the completed accident report among the documents the procedure expects, and insurers reason from it for years.

Next, notify your insurer quickly. Your policy sets the notice period, but article L113-2 of the Insurance Code provides that the contractual period for declaring any event likely to trigger cover cannot be less than five working days, reduced to two working days for theft, and that forfeiture of cover for late declaration, where the contract provides for it, can only be held against you if the insurer proves the delay caused it harm, and never where the delay comes from chance events or force majeure. In plain terms: declare within five working days to be safe, by registered letter or the channel your contract accepts, and a short delay is not automatically fatal unless the insurer shows real prejudice. Keep proof of posting and a copy of everything.

Then build the medical file from day one, because every euro later depends on it. Go to the emergency department or your GP, describe every symptom even if it seems minor, and keep each certificate, prescription, scan and sick note. The date that will matter most is the consolidation, which service-public.fr defines as the moment the victim’s condition is regarded as medically stabilised, with definitive after-effects, on the same official compensation page. Consolidation starts the ten-year clock and triggers the final offer, as Part II explains. If your injuries worsen after stabilisation, that aggravation restarts its own clock: the Court of Cassation held in the 20 January 2022 decision cited above that the ten-year rule runs from consolidation of the initial or aggravated injury, so a documented relapse years later is not automatically time-barred. If the crash was also an assault with a vehicle used as a weapon, the criminal compensation route may run alongside the traffic scheme, as explained in our guide for British victims of crime in France who file a complaint and claim compensation.

II. How much, when and how to fight back against the insurer

A. The offer timetable British victims must diary: three months, eight months, provisional then final

Once your claim is lodged, the insurer works to a timetable set by statute, not by goodwill. Where liability is not contested and the loss is fully quantified, article L211-9 of the Insurance Code requires the insurer of the motor vehicle to present a reasoned compensation offer within three months of the claim. Where liability is disputed or the loss is not yet fully quantified, the same article requires a reasoned reply within the same period. For bodily injury, the same text sets an absolute backstop: « Une offre d’indemnité doit être faite à la victime qui a subi une atteinte à sa personne dans le délai maximum de huit mois à compter de l’accident. » A compensation offer must therefore reach a bodily-injury victim no later than eight months after the crash. The official service-public.fr guide confirms this reading for the public: an offer must be formulated within three months of the demand, extendable to eight months after the accident where the insurer cannot yet assess the whole loss or liability is not established, with the time limit most favourable to the victim applying, according to the same service-public.fr page on road injury compensation.

Because serious injuries take longer than eight months to stabilise, the statute provides a two-stage offer. The same article L211-9 states that the offer may be provisional where the insurer has not been informed of consolidation within three months of the accident, and the final offer must then be made within five months of the date the insurer learns of consolidation, with the time limit most favourable to the victim applying in any event. The Court of Cassation restated this machinery word for word on 3 April 2025 (Second Civil Chamber, no. 23-18.453): « Il résulte du premier de ces textes qu’une offre d’indemnité doit être faite à la victime qui a subi une atteinte à sa personne dans le délai maximum de huit mois à compter de l’accident. Cette offre peut avoir un caractère provisionnel lorsque l’assureur n’a pas, dans les trois mois de l’accident, été informé de la consolidation de l’état de la victime. L’offre définitive d’indemnisation doit alors être faite dans un délai de cinq mois suivant la date à laquelle l’assureur a été informé de cette consolidation. » In English: bodily injury means an offer within eight months of the accident; it may be provisional if consolidation is still unknown three months after the crash; the final offer then follows within five months of the insurer learning of consolidation. That April 2025 decision is also a warning to insurers, because the victim won on the penalty point discussed below.

What should the offer contain? It must be reasoned and it must cover every compensable head of loss, including property damage not already settled, where the victim has died and the offer goes to the heirs and where relevant the spouse, under the same article L211-9. In practice, expect line-by-line amounts for medical costs, loss of earnings, assistance by a third party, pain and suffering, aesthetic and functional impairment, and loss of amenity, each backed by the medical expert’s report. At your first written contact, the insurer must also tell you, on pain of relative nullity of any settlement that might follow, that you can obtain from it on request a copy of the police investigation report, under article L211-10 of the Insurance Code. Ask for that report: it often decides liability, and you are entitled to read what the insurer reads.

Two practical points matter especially for British victims. First, the medical examination is usually organised by the insurer’s doctor, but you may attend with a doctor of your choice and you should do so for any significant injury: the consolidation date and the impairment percentages fixed at that examination drive the entire valuation. Second, if you have returned to Britain, the procedure continues by post and the deadlines above run exactly the same way; consolidation can be assessed on British medical documents transmitted to the expert, but make sure the insurer is formally informed of consolidation in writing, because the five-month period for the final offer runs from the date the insurer is informed, as the 3 April 2025 decision holds. Diary these dates from the crash: three months for the reasoned offer or reply, eight months for the bodily-injury offer, five months from notice of consolidation for the final figure.

B. Saying no, pulling out and going to court: fifteen days, double interest and ten years

You are never obliged to accept the first figure, and the statute organises your refusal. If the insurer misses its deadlines, article L211-13 of the Insurance Code provides that the amount offered by the insurer or awarded by the court automatically bears interest at double the statutory rate from expiry of the period until the offer or the final judgment, with only a judicial reduction for circumstances beyond the insurer’s control. In the 3 April 2025 case (no. 23-18.453), the victim claimed exactly that double-interest penalty from 4 November 2011, the appeal court had rejected it because a final offer had arrived within five months of learning of consolidation, and the Court of Cassation quashed that reasoning: the lower court should have checked whether the insurer had, within the legal period, presented at least a provisional offer that was complete and not plainly inadequate on the known facts. The Court recalled on 3 April 2025 (Second Civil Chamber, no. 23-18.453): « si l’offre n’a pas été faite dans ce délai, le montant de l’indemnité offerte par l’assureur ou allouée par le juge produit intérêts de plein droit au double du taux de l’intérêt légal à compter de l’expiration du délai et jusqu’au jour de l’offre ou du jugement devenu définitif. » In English: where no offer is made in time, the sum offered or awarded automatically bears interest at double the statutory rate from expiry of the period until the offer or the final judgment.

If the offer arrives on time but is derisory, article L211-14 lets the court that fixes compensation order the insurer, of its own motion, to pay the guarantee fund up to fifteen per cent of the award, on top of any damages owed to you for that inadequacy. A low offer therefore carries two separate price tags for the insurer.

If you sign a settlement and regret it, you have a short cooling-off right. Article L211-16 of the Insurance Code allows the victim to denounce the settlement within fifteen days of its conclusion by registered letter or registered electronic message with acknowledgement of receipt, voids any clause waiving that right, and requires these provisions to appear prominently in the offer and the settlement on pain of relative nullity. Once that period expires, article L211-17 requires payment of the agreed sums within one month after the denunciation period ends, failing which the unpaid sums automatically bear interest at the statutory rate increased by half for two months, then at double the statutory rate. Read every settlement against those two articles before signing: check the fifteen-day notice is printed on it, and diary the one-month payment date.

The long-stop deadline is generous but it must be counted correctly. Article 2226 of the Civil Code provides that a liability claim arising from an event causing bodily injury, brought by the direct or indirect victim, is time-barred ten years after the date of consolidation of the initial or aggravated injury. The official guide confirms that the victim has ten years from consolidation to bring the claim, on the same service-public.fr compensation page. Consolidation is therefore the hinge of the whole case, and courts assess it as a matter of fact: on 10 February 2022 (Second Civil Chamber, no. 20-20.143), the Court of Cassation upheld judges who fixed consolidation at the date of the expert report.

The Court held on 10 February 2022 (Second Civil Chamber, no. 20-20.143): « c’est à cette date que le délai de prescription a commencé à courir », that the limitation period started to run on that date. For British victims this has a concrete consequence: keep every medical document that dates your stabilisation, and if your condition worsens later, obtain a fresh expert assessment at once, because aggravation carries its own ten-year period under article 2226 as interpreted in the 20 January 2022 decision. Where to sue? Claims are brought before the tribunal judiciaire, and Paris road cases are typically heard by its nineteenth civil chamber, which handles the traffic decisions cited in this article; your lawyer will confirm the competent court from the place of the crash and the parties’ domiciles. Act early, because medical evidence fades even where the legal clock is long.

Conclusion

A road crash in France does not leave a British victim to negotiate alone. The insurer of the vehicle must answer you with reasons within three months and offer compensation for bodily injury within eight months of the accident at the latest, on a provisional basis if your condition has not stabilised, with the final figure within five months of learning of your consolidation. Late offers automatically carry double statutory interest, derisory offers can cost the insurer up to fifteen per cent of your award paid to the guarantee fund, signed settlements can be denounced within fifteen days, and the courts remain open for ten years from consolidation, including for later aggravation. Your part of the bargain is early paperwork: a careful joint report at the scene, notice to the insurer within five working days, and a complete medical file that dates your stabilisation precisely. Keep the crash date, the three-month, eight-month and five-month milestones, the fifteen-day withdrawal window and the ten-year long stop in one diary, in writing, from the first week. With those dates secured and the official texts above in hand, you can answer every letter from the insurer on equal terms and challenge, step by step, any refusal or shortfall. Keep copies of the joint report, the registered notice to the insurer, every medical certificate and each offer letter together, so that any lawyer or court sees the full paper trail at once.