Arranging temporary insurance for a private test ride

[TimTucker]

I'm interested in buying a second-hand Aprilia RSV-R privately. Before splashing out large amounts of money I would like to take one for a test ride to make sure I can get on with the beast. An RSV-R is a big step up from an SV650S.

One alternative is to arrange a test drive at an Aprilia dealership on one of their demonstrators. But is it possible to get some kind of temporary insurance policy for the actual bike I would like to buy? Has anyone on the forum ever had to arrange something like this?

I know my comprehensive insurance policy (with E-Bike) is for my machine only and does not automatically insure me to ride another bike. (Nor does it insure anyone permission to ride my bike unless they're mentioned on my Certificate of Insurance). I know it's the same situation for the seller's insurance policy, too.

Is there a company that arranges such policies off the shelf? Is it common practice for bike insurance companies to provide them?

Any help, hints, advice or shortcuts to URLs will be appreciated.

There's companies that offer day insurance for cars for this kind of purpose but I've never seen a bike equivalent. Most bike policies I've come across have included riding other bikes with the owner's permission (not as many car policies have that - though a lot still do).

Is your insurance company not willing to entertain you adding the bike to your policy temporarily?

[TimTucker]

I'm going to call E-Bike tomorrow and see what they say, but I was just wondering if anyone here had previous experience of this.

[Biker Biggles]

You can add another bike to your policy on Ebike,but you probably need to be the registered owner for it to be legal.
I have found the big downside with Ebike is that you can phone them for advice,but getting any sort of sensible answer out of them is a very different matter.Good luck.

Had a similar problem recently, trying to add someone else to a policy so they could borrow the bike for a few days. Ended up having to take out the cover for the remainder of the current policy, about 9mths.

Watch out for admin fees. We were going to get charged twice, once to add, then again to remove a week later, and no refund of the premium - £153 in the end. When you consider that the years premium on the original policy was only £83 anyway....... Not impressed.

Originally Posted by TimTucker

I'm going to call E-Bike tomorrow and see what they say, but I was just wondering if anyone here had previous experience of this.

I know that one of the drawbacks of ebike is that you aren't covered 3rd party on other peoples bikes, even if you're FC on yours with ebike.

Good luck bro!

I tried to get tempoarary cover so I could test ride a 125 a few years back and was told I couldn't take out insurance as the bike wasn't mine. I suspect the only way of doing it would be for the seller to change his policy.

Could always tell the dealer that you'll buy the bike if you crash it, then get insurance on it and tell the insurance company you're going to buy it today and want to start a new policy. Test ride it and if you like it you already have the policy, if you don't like it call the insurer within the 14 day cooling off period and they can't charge you much at all.

All 4 bikes I've had have been insured before the test ride like that. I've never fallen off on the test ride though. So long as the insurer understands that you're buying the bike when you take the policy out, not just taking a test ride (they don't like the idea of insuring you for that - too risky). And it's your legal right to cancel the policy if you change your mind. Check out what penalties they have though - provided you cancel it within the cooling off period of 14 days, they shouldn't be able to stick on loads of extra cancellation/admin charges.