US Citizen with UK Wife currently residing in Scotland - Insurance Question
 

My wife is British and is currently living in Scotland. We'd like to take a motorcycle trip through the UK this summer. I have a motorcycle endorsement on my US license. She does not have a motorcycle endorsement.

We've talked about her purchasing a bike ahead of my arrival and using that for our tour. What I'm struggling with is how to get myself added to the insurance. The other complication is I'm not sure she'd even be able to insure it without a motorcycle license. Even if she is able to insure it without a license, would she be able to add me as a rider? Perhaps we could buy it in my name? That would require an insurance company willing to accept my non-UK license.

Thanks to this forum, I'm familiar with the green card insurance process. Since we'd be registering the bike in the UK and wanting to travel in the UK, that would not be applicable.

:welcome: herein because this is your first post.

You are up against the very much tighter insurance rules and regulations of recent times.

A few points:
"endorsement" is an emotive word in this context; for the Brits it means that you have a traffic violation recorded against your name/driving licence.
Literally recorded on our old paper based licences - nowadays all is kept on computer databases that can be accessed instantly by anyone authorised to see such data, which includes the insurance companies apparently.

But I do understand - you mean that your wife has not passed a test to ride a motorbike, in which case there is next to no chance of her obtaining insurance for a particular machine.
Even if she did manage to find an insurance company prepared to cover that type of risk, adding a foreign licence to insurance has proved to be difficult; but IIRC some folks say it has been done, in the past - perhaps not nowadays?
I suggest on that count you look at the Trip Paperwork area of the HUBB where someone may have explained how to do this.

Take a look in this thread - start with the latest posts for the most current information:-
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...cheap-34822-15

How about hiring a bike in the UK, depending on how long you want to ride here?
Or, consider buying a machine in Ireland, registering and and keeping it there, insured in your own name; there is plenty of information in here about how to do that quite easily.

Good luck!

Your time would be better talking to actual insurance companies, presenting your exact requirements and finding out if they can make an acceptable offer. Everyone on the forum will have an opinion but what was fact in one case at one time may not be fact in a very similar circumstance at a different time.

ThereGoesPlanB:

Welcome to the HUBB forums.

I think Tourider gave the best answer (immediately above), which is that you should speak directly with the insurance companies to find out exactly what their requirements are.

For example, in Canada, insurance is issued 'on the vehicle', rather than 'to the operator'. This means that when you purchase insurance for a vehicle, anyone who is legally permitted to operate that vehicle will be fully insured if/when they ride it. It's not always like that in other countries, where insurance is sometimes issued 'to the operator (driver)', as opposed 'to the vehicle'.

Although I have not the faintest knowledge of UK insurance requirements, I cannot see why your wife would not be able to buy a motorcycle, register it in her name, and arrange insurance for you to operate it. Many vehicles are purchased by and registered to companies, and obviously the 'company' does not have a driver licence nor can the 'company' drive the vehicle. Hence there must be some provisions for the UK insurers to write cover on a vehicle that is owned by a person who is not licenced to operate it. Obviously, this assumes that the un-licenced owner will not operate it themselves.

Best suggestion I can offer, along the lines of what Tourider already said, is that your wife contact a local insurance company and explain what the two of you want to do, and ask them how to go about getting everything in order to permit you to do it.

Michael

Hi hope this post isn't too, there are a couple of sitesvthat allow you to insure a bike you have bought for up to a month, it definitely does foreign nationals as my friend bought three days worth to ride his bike home, can't remember the company's name but try searching under temp motorcycle insurance.
The other guys are right about your wife though, she does not hold a licence for that class of vehicle so would not be able to insure said bike.
Amother way round it would be to sell the bike to a friend for say a pound, he insures it and names you as a driver, he then later sells it back to you

Since I'm back, I wanted to give everyone an update. I had no trouble getting the bike insured as a US resident. Most of the bike insurance quotes I received allowed you to request a quote using an international driver's license (about $15 at AAA). Of course, I did register the bike in my name at my wife's address. This will probably be the sticking point for a lot of people. If you are able to get a bike registered at a UK address, you'll have no trouble finding insurance. I personally used Bennets cause it was the cheapest (less than 100 GBP/year).

That's a good outcome.

I linked your thread into this one which tells a few tales about experiences with UK insurance brokers.
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...7-3#post513486