Is your SORN motorcycle insured? BEWARE

TooTrusting_2

I doubt that many motorcycle riders out there are aware that their bikes may be effectively unisured when SORN, even if they have paid for all year round motorcycle insurance.

It appears that most normal insurance policies only cover the machine for "on the road risk", that's to say road legal and not when it is "laid up". If your tax either runs out or you cash it in (say for the winter months when you won't be using it and need it to remain covered for fire or theft) and you SORN it, then many policies will no longer cover the bike even if you have informed the company. I don't fully understand why this is, as I would have thought that the bike is a far smaller risk when it is unused and stored off road - they only have the fire/theft risk to worry about - compared to when you are actually riding it on the road.

The problem becomes even more complicated if you have multiple bikes (like most motorcycles do), and dont keep all the bikes on the road at the same time. If you don't use one for a couple of seasons, then you probably haven't MOT'd it or taxed it (and it's SORN) until you want to use it, but you will want to keep it insured for theft - don't assume that your multi-bike policy will be covering it, as it appears that many of them don't. I found this out at renewal time when I mentioned one bike was SORN.

There does appear to be the odd one or two compaines that will cover the bike while SORN, but they still insist the bike is MOT'd and are often not very competative on price. There are also insurance compaines that now do special SORN insurance, but I have looked at this and for me, it works out far more expensive than insuring the bike to be on the road!!!

The only option may be just to spend more (unnecessary) money on covering it one way or another, I am not sure but would be interested in the experiences of others who are trying to work through similar circumstances. I also wanted to raise the issue and bring it to the attention of people who may be not aware, so they can then check with their respective insurers.

rs65

I've never come across that and it surprises me.

Is there anything in your policy that supports this?

MEM62

If the insurance is more expensive and the bikes need to be MOT's anyway, why not just keep all the bikes fully road legal. Based on your information the only saving is the VED anyway. To be honest, I have never looked at SORN as I keep both my bikes taxed and insured year round. We often get decent riding days during winter - particularly when you have a heated seat and grips - toasty!

TooTrusting_2

rs65 wrote: »

I've never come across that and it surprises me.
Is there anything in your policy that supports this?

I couldn't find anything specific but they are a nightmare to read through and it could be hidden somewhere but nowhere obvious. It surprised me too, I assumed that they would be insured regardless of if I had them on the road or not - I paid my premium for the cover and thought if anything if I don't actually use them then the insurers are only better off and not that they considered it to be a higher risk somehow.

MEM62 wrote: »

If the insurance is more expensive and the bikes need to be MOT's anyway, why not just keep all the bikes fully road legal. Based on your information the only saving is the VED anyway. To be honest, I have never looked at SORN as I keep both my bikes taxed and insured year round. We often get decent riding days during winter - particularly when you have a heated seat and grips - toasty!

Yeah I see what you are saying, but what I normally do is just have one bike road legal at any one time (whichever I wanted to use that year), so the others are SORN and not taxed, they are not MOT'd until I want to use them. But I wanted to keep them insured for theft at all times. So I was saving on MOT and tax (normally take out 12 months then cash in when finished using it approx sept/oct). I was also hoping that I could drop the insurance down to just fire/theft for the winter but thats a none-starter. None of my bikes are high performance or particularly valuable, just bikes I enjoy riding for different reasons, but it is all done on a tight budget. However, what you are suggesting my be the only way forward (that or sell all but one)...!!!

rs65

TooTrusting wrote: »

I couldn't find anything specific but they are a nightmare to read through and it could be hidden somewhere but nowhere obvious.

Ask them where it is stated in the policy. If it's not there, it's irrelevant what they say.

TooTrusting_2

rs65 wrote: »

Ask them where it is stated in the policy. If it's not there, it's irrelevant what they say.

That sounds a sensible idea - when I contacted them yesterday, they did actually go off and check with the underwriters if they covered a SORN bike and that's where the statement saying it isn't covered came from - they called me back to tell me that it's not covered with any of that particular underwriters policies. They only had one company that would cover SORN bikes and they quoted high. This prompted me to then ring around for an alternative policy and I asked several different brokers/companies and they were all saying the same thing!