Hitchcocks Forum

Read this the other day in a bike magazine......, Mr A sells his bike to mr B, Mr A doesn't bother cancelling his insurance policy, Mr B has a crash but lied on his insurance policy so the policy is void and his insurance company refuses to pay out, the third party want their injury claims etc, under European law, because Mr B's insurance is void liability falls to the next policy available for said vehicle, Mr A's still running policy, Mr A's insurance company pays out as they obliged to do, but then chase Mr A for the money, by law they are allowed to do this, So Mr A now has a hefty bill for an accident that he was not involved in for a vehicle he no longer owns....The moral of this story, cancel your insurance the day you sell your vehicle.

And return the certificate. You might, just, if you're lucky, get a small refund.

Can't see this standing up in court. It's all hearsay but if it did happen I'd bet it's an insurance company trying it on. "European law" means nothing, it would have to have been absorbed into our legal code to have effect and it runs counter to the principles of personal responsibility in English law. REgards, Mark

Are there any examples of case law to back up the "media" exampleless article?

This came up in the ask an expert pages of Ride magazine recently. The motorcycling solicitor confirmed that the law does indeed say this, and that the insurance companies do pursue people for the money. Beware.

That all sounds a bit contrived somehow. I've forgotten how it works back in Blighty, but over here the insurance companies will want to see the registration docs and proof of ownership before they insure... Makes it a bit difficult to lie about anything...

Very little will surprise me regarding insurance companies. They are "the masters of small print". .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- However, if all this should happen, I think that Mr. A and/or Mr. B also hasn't bothered about the registration papers, to make shure Mr. B is the legal owner of the bike. At least here in Norway, one can't register a vehicle without a statement from an insurance company that it is covered by a liability insurance. So if Mr. B is the legal owner, he has to have at least a liability insurance. If he has lied about something, e.g. his own age, technical specs or something, in order to save some money, then of course the insurance company will not pay out in full. But in that case I would guess that his insurance company would go after him, not Mr. A. who is no longer the owner. This changes completely if Mr. A still is the legal, registered owner, of course! .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- That said, it is ALWAYS a good idea to cancel insurance etc. etc. as soon as possible when selling a bike. There is no reason not to! Regards, Anders F. R.

"it is ALWAYS a good idea to cancel insurance etc. etc. as soon as possible when selling a bike. There is no reason not to!"

Unfortunately Anders here in the UK the insurance companies mostly charge a cancellation fee and it can be cheaper to just let it expire if it only has a short time to run.

I find this all a bit confusing! You cannot insure a bike that you do not own or are not the custodian of, and so as soon as the bike is sold the policy must become invalid. Maybe I am missing something obvious, but a claim cannot be made against an invalid policy!

Ed.Lazda, I think we are talking about the same article, our friends on foreign shores, over here you don't need to prove anything to an insurance company to open a policy, it can be done online or over the phone and they take your word on all the details, I would imagine Mr B got his no claims discount or something trivial wrong and his insurance company used it as a get out as is often the case with UK insurers. winky, that's what I thought, I took an interest as I failed to cancel a policy after my bike was sold because of the cancellation fee, I have now cancelled it ( it turns out to my surprise there was no fee ).