Octang Frye

Visiting Blighty. Brother in law has motorcycles. Wife and I have US motorcycle endorsements.
Can we get short term insurance to use his bikes? Seems like all I can find is no.

Could he add us as named riders if he got the insurance?

Thanks.

BritInParis

Temporary insurance is widely available - is the issue your licences?

Pulaski

Wouldn't having your brother add you to his policy as approved riders be the cheapest and easiest solution?

Octang Frye

They're not currently insured.

Pulaski

Oooooh Kaaaay. .... So perhaps having him insure them and add you might be the easiest, if not only practical way, given that you are not resident in the UK. .... Unless your brother is banned or physically incapacitated, which would make his own insurance prohibitively expensive, or unless he is incarcerated, which would make him needing insurance improbable, to say the least, and therefore would raise some awkward questions if the purpose for the insurance was questioned.

BritInParis

They own their motorcycles but they aren’t insured to ride them?

zzrmark

Not unusual, most of my machines were uninsured - wasn't practical insuring all of them at once, mind you I had 21 of them in 2011!
​​​​​​Think OP's in-laws would do best to speak to an agent, UK bike policies tend to cover sole rider on sole machine or the rider on any machine ( I think there is only one company now offering this option and I think the machine had to be insured by it's owner).
A short term policy covering OP might be the best bet, if you can find one to cover an alien. I don't suppose he has a valid UK license in a dusty drawer someplace?

Edit: Just to clarify, the machines I rode on a day to day basis were fully insured, the others would either be insured if I wanted to ride them on the public road or they rode piggy back on a trailer!

BritInParis

Owning 21 motorcycles sounds pretty unusual to me but anyhoo

Pulaski

I can answer that question "No, he doesn't.", because he's resident in the US, and even if he does have a UK license in a dusty drawer someplace, it isn't valid because he isn't resident in the UK.

markonline1

zzrmark

Valid was the wrong term, one with an unexpired term would be more what I was getting at. Further ponderance today has me thinking that the only way to do this easily, and legally, would be to hire a machine but finding motorcycle hire companies in the UK is like looking for rocking horse poo.

It's wasn't all it's cracked up to be, might be different if I had a few bob and some half decent machines but these were mostly over ten years old and little more than junk value.
My old derestricted Zed 1100 was the cream of the crop, although the pair of rev-limiter free 90's 900 Fireblades were fun, especially the one that I chucked off all the unnecessary stuff (someone beat me to ditching the fairings but I did get rid of the expansion tank, ignition keylock, air box, fuel pump, rear seat, sub frame, a mile of wiring, etc, etc ).The Husqvarna TE400 was quite fun although I preferred the rough ride from the 70's XT500 Thumper, even if I did break the kickstart lever when it tried to throw me off it while kicking it one morning, it's 250 sister was a nice tame version. The R6 was a skitty ride and the ZX9R wasn't much better, both a bit cramped for my liking, much preferred the worn out old Fazer 600. Then there were the projects like the GSXR400, a scabby old Africa Twin, the ever hopeful Z600 and the temperamental 600 Teapot that looked (and ran) odd. A couple of Piaggio Zips in varying sizes, a nasty CCM ( that was in good condition but a horrible ride), another 900 Fireblade and a few non-descripts completed the group.