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At the end of the day it is your responsibility to ensure that you are insured on the public highway.

Now I don't know about your case, but I would suspect that if you can demonstrate that you took all reasonable steps to insure that you were insured on this bike then you should be OK.

I also leaned the hard way. I bought a brand new bike some years ago (1999) from North Harbour Motorcycles in Ayr. I also took out Yamaha insurance through the dealer. I put the bike in for a service as it was under warranty. I rode off home on their demo bike (Honda Hornet 600 with 250 miles on the clock, very nice it was too) after singing the form they pushed under my nose. Before I singed it they asked me what insurance I had. I told them it was the fully comp insurance I had which I had bought from them. They said that's fine then , just sign this. I was doing good business with them and I thought I was just singing to accept the excess on their insurance, which in fact I was, the only thing I didn't realise was that this excess was for the insurance on their bike, I was not singing on to their insurance as such.

On the way back to pick up the bike I got T-boned at low speed filtering through traffic. An argument with the driver ensued and I phoned the police.

To cut a long story short, the bike dealer assumed the policy that they had sold me had the usual 'any other vehicle bit' and they got me to sign for the excess for damage to the bike. In other words they made sure their bike was insured but not me. My Yamaha insurance that they sold me specifically stated that I was insured for my bike only. It did not cover me for any other bike The police breathalysed myself and the driver of the other vehicle and asked that we both submit our documents.

Even after phoning the dealer about the situation I was in (after returning the bike, paying for my service etc) they didn't explain what they had arranged for me. It wasn't too long before I figured it out.

Fortunately I had car insurance with that key 'any other vehicle' wording, which the police reluctantly accepted.

Needless to say after that and a few other problems I had with North Harbour Motorcycles in Ayr I've never been back. But I'm no under no illusion when taking a dealers bike. It's up to me to make sure I have insurance.

My policy is also for any other car

The wording needs to be any other vehicle

Obviously you need to have a license for any such vehicle - you need the owners permission - and usually there needs to be an existing insurance policy on that vehicle.

So that may offer you a simple way out.