So here you are in Perth with your bike out of customs and quarantine, ready to roll. Ready? A little voice in your head tells you that this looks like the kind of country where insurance could be mandatory (and a wise thing to do?).

Been there, done that. Here's how to get insured in Western Australia (with countrywide coverage).

There are two kinds of Third-Party insurance that you can get: Personal and Property. Personal is compulsory, Property is optional. If you go to the Royal Automobile Club, they will sell you only Property insurance. In order to get insured you need to get your vehicle inspected for road worthiness. What? Of course my bike is road worthy, I've ridden 28000 km to get to Australia! Once you get that inspection, you will get insurance immediately.

In WA you need to call the vehicle examination centre at 1 300 782 713 and ask for an inspection appointment in or around Perth. Perth centres are quite busy and you may not get an appointment until 5 or 6 days later. I got mine at Kelmscott, 35km South of Perth on the next day at 11am.

Whatever the time of your appointment, you need to be there half an hour earlier to pay you examination fee. It's around 65 AUD and they take credit cards.

The examination is very cursory, they will take note of your odometer value, VIN and engine number, check lights (low, high, turn, brake), check the horn and chain tension (why he did that, I don't know). Once it's done, the inspector will go away for a while to complete the paperwork and come back to you with your carnet and a little paper saying that (hopefully) your bike's passed the examination.

Now that you know that your bike is road worthy, you can go to the other side of the building and queue to get insurance. Some employees probably will frown at your request (a bike with carnet is apparently more difficult) but if you are lucky, there will be someone in the office that's used to those requests. In my case, her name was Fiona and the inspector had already told me I may have to talk to her. She took care of everything and after payment (65 AUD again), I was insured for the duration of my carnet.

If you also want third-party property insurance, you can now go to the RAC or to Kings Cross Car Market Online to get it. I didn't.

Done and done, ready to roll!

Well done Na Cho, this should be of great help to others, and this should be true of other places in Oz as well, not just Perth.

Now, about the shipping thread

Cheers
TS

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www.travellingstrom.com

Will do, will do. Soon. On the proper thread.

By the way, if trying in another state, a good place to start would be the Department of Transport of that state. They were the ones who transferred me to the right number.

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www.mylongvoyage.com

Good post. I did the temp import in Perth airport on March 2008. One of the reasons for all the hassle with the inspections etc. seemed to be, that they added the bike into the Australian vehicle register (even though it was not necessary to get local plates). All vehicles arrive shipped to Oz, so it kinda makes sense they want to have a look at it before they do that. Receiving my bike, nobody mentioned any insurance, and I didn´t want to bring it up at the airport, so that I could get the bike out of there without delays. Took a couple of days to figure out, how it works. I was able to first get a temporary insurance by phone for 48 hours, this allowed me to ride legally to the inspection site. The rest was pretty much as you described.

“There are two kinds of Third-Party insurance that you can get: Personal and Property. Personal is compulsory, Property is optional“

– About this part, I must admit that I had no idea (or maybe it was different 5 years ago) but I´m not fully familiar with the terminology: does this mean, that ´personal´ covers the people, that may get injured in an accident caused by you.. and that ´property´ covers their vehicles and other material losses in a similar case?

BTW, the quarantine inspection is to be taken seriously. About a year ago, there was an old bus from Finland doing a RTW-tour, and the travellers tried real hard to clean it, but it never passed that inspection, so it was never allowed into Oz. In the end they had to send it onwards, and ended up renting another bus to travel there! Of course a bike will be a lot easier to clean than an old bus, but still worth noting, that vehicles can be completely refused entry.

Exactomundo

The first one is called COMPULSORY 3rd Party and if you are on the road you must have it, it covers people that YOU run into, or are involved in an accident.

The second is an extra you can pay if you like, it covers that stretch limo or BMW that you Tbone while riding

Cheers
TS

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www.travellingstrom.com

There are commercial Quarantine cleaners that will clean your transport and arrange the required inspection clearance , saves you a lot of hassle , esp if your standard is not quite as high as the DEPT !

In my case, I found their standards quite below mines but I do encourage everyone to give their bike a good wash before shipping to Australia and to ensure there's no bugs stuck anywhere (including under the bash plate, on sprocket cover, the center stand and on the inside of the mudguards).

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Currently riding around the world
www.mylongvoyage.com