"Thousands unwittingly uninsured"

[truslack]

Although I hate MCN, my dad sent me a link to this.

https://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/General-news/2012/January/jan3012-thousands-unwittingly-uninsured/

MCN bollocks, or something for those of us who did the A2 test to worry about?
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Current: Suzuki RG 125 Gamma, Honda H100, Triumph Tiger 800XC, Suzuki SV650 (minitwin)

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Misleading title.

Could be uninsured. The guy mentioned also refused to pay the £35 extra. I mean really.

Good that I'm with MCE and they don't agree with the ombudsman.
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[RePT]

so, were not allowed to carry a pillion, untill the 2 year restriction ends?

And we have to put the L plates back on!?

JJokes

[Pol Anorl]

I told my insurance company i passed my full test when i passed my restricted license test.. i didn't see an option for "restricted license"...
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[P.]

Pfft, DVLA can take them all to court and lose.

Category A is full bike entitlement end of.

Same as Category B, you do the test that is it. Auto tests get auto cars, we get 33hp for 2 years. Simple as shit.

Someone needs to teabag the DVLA chief..

Once Cat A is on your licence, that is it.. a pink licence is a full licence, DVLA can suck on some serious amounts of wang.

[J.M.]

Agree with Paddy.

When you pass your "A2" test you are awarded a FULL A licence. The "2" is a subcategory of the FULL A license which makes people call it the "A2" licence. As Roger loves to say, there is actually no such thing as an "A2" licence (yet).

If we check the Direct-Gov website just here we can see that:

[.Chris.]

£35 isn't much, but given it's a CD200 we're talking about, this could amount to another 50% on top of the premium.

If it's not a full licence, then why are 33bhpers allowed to use motorways and carry pillions? Given that the bike in question was well under 33bhp, surely this means the rider had a full licence for the machine in question?

Sounds rather like ebike trying to use a dubious/nonsensical technicality to get out of paying a claim. This is not the first time I've heard bad things about ebike.
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Chris
1985 Kawasaki Z550F

[iooi]

[Rogerborg]

We were just talking about this here recently. My view, copied and pasted from MCN for your pleasure:

I've just had this exact discussion with the DVLA, and they won't budge on the way that they record license categories. They claimed to be unaware that anyone had had an issue with insurance because of it - I have the emails available if anyone is interested.

I do have to take issue with the use of the term "full license" here, because while many insurers do stitch us up by only listing "provisional" and "full" (or some other nonsense term), eBike are one of the few outfits that do allow us to distinguish between provisional, A1, "A2" (no such category exists, they presumably mean "A <= 25k") and A, so they're very slightly less despicable than most other insurers pulling this trick.

If you do get stung with this, take a very careful look at what your insurer asked. Some of them do ask for the date that you passed your test and so can jog on, and some only let us enter "full" (or "A") and are also on a sticky wicket - how are you meant to tell them that you've got "A1" or "A <= 25kW", and how on earth can your license category upgrading lose you 2 years of experience? Ambiguity in a contract, especially a contract of adhesion, should be decided in favour of the party that didn't draft it, they shouldn't be given a chance to turn round later and say "Oh, right, what we meant to ask you was..."

OK, eBike do actually ask the right question, but boo sucks to the Ombudsman, and I hope that someone with a more ambiguous insurer takes this to a proper grown up court which should throw it out on its ear if there's any vagueness in what was asked.

It's the insurers' ostensible job to get this right, and they've got absolutely no excuse for pleading ignorance since the Directive that defined the "A <= 25kW" license was published in 1991. We shouldn't need to still be explaining the correct license terminology to them over 20 years later.
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[koolio]

An A2 licence is a full licence.

If it wasn't a full licence you wouldn't be allowed on motorways etc.

What it is is a full licence to ride a bike under or equal to 33bhp.

If it was a partial licence or a temporary licence you'd have take another test etc. or wear L plates.

So the ombudsman is talking out of his arse, and simply using semantics to favour the insurance company.

[anthony_r6]

Looks like MCE or Carol Nash will be my next insurer.

Why can't anybody get their acts together?

The whole system is a joke.
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[crazyjoyce]

what's MCE's view then? i can't see anything online. anyone got a link?

[Jayy]

I'm insured with MCE and regularly check Ask MID ( Just checked it ) to make sure I'm still insured because I don't trust MCE.

I made the mistake of putting I had a full license for 8 years when I got my first ZX6R when in reality, I had only had a full license for 24 hours. The question asked, "How long have you held a motorcycle license for?" Which my answer was true, it didn't state, "How long have you held a FULL motorcycle license for?".

I thought fully comp on a ZX6R at £300 was cheap for a first big bike!

[Walloper]

[st3v3]

[ninja_butler]

Absolutely ridiculous. This problem could easily have been solved by insurance companies asking the simple question "do you have a full motorcycle license or does your license restrict you to 33bhp?"

According to MCN, 87.43% of people didn't know that an A1 license does not count as a full motorcycle license - and I'm one of them.

[daemonoid]

The DVLA website is unequivocal about it:

[Rogerborg]

[calyx]

Passed my bike test on a 125 in 2002
Passed the car test in 2004

Licence says;

A from 2004
B from 2004
fkp 2002 (with an information code 118)

So... What does this mean?
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Boris - London

[LordShaftesbu...]

As far as I can tell the problem is that there is no such thing as a "full license". Insurance companies just should not use this phrase, as essentially it's meaningless. No wonder there's confusion.

I could argue that even an A1 is a full license, a full license to ride a certain type of vehicle, just like the other categories are full licenses to ride/drive other types of vehicle.

[LordShaftesbu...]

[P.]

Someone willing to can their "A2" pass certificate

[c-m]

I don't see what the issue is.

The guy in the story just needs to take his complaint further up the chain.

The financial ombudsman was probably the wrong place to go to for amounts to a contract law dispute over representation.

Just like we have government MOT centres, it's about time we also had a government insurance company (since it's a legal requirement of vehicles), that way they could set the standard for the industry.
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[Rogerborg]

[Walloper]