State Farm FUBAR on EVD: Who Covers?

That's strange - I have a couple of EV bikes covered with State Farm and haven't had a problem.

Sorry to hear your woes.

State Farm was happy to take my money when I owned an EVD, and is still happy to take my money for my C130.

I wonder if they've just put a new policy in place or something?

I seem to recall that they questioned me a couple times about the VIN, making sure I got it right, and they did say something about a 'recognized manufacturer'. The first few letters of the VIN are supposed to identify the manufacturer, but the Chinese names may be giving them problems. I ended up sending a high-res photograph of the VIN/Manufacturer plate, and that seemed to satisfy them.

I think part of the problem is that Huari is the name of an industrial zone with multiple companies in it, and the full name of the company is "Zhejiang Huangyan Huari Group Co., Ltd", or maybe it's "Shanghai Huari Enterprise Development Co., Ltd." or "Jaingmen Huari Group Co., Ltd". (I see a couple plausible alternatives using a quick Google search)

See if the R.Martin guys can clarify the complete full name of the company for you, that might be enough to satisfy the insurance people. (And remember that the frame is manufactured for a gas scooter, and the electrical conversion is done by a different company in China. You are registering using a VIN based on the frame, not the drive system.)

Hey thanks guys - I FWDd your comments to my agent. I listed the Manufacturer as Huari - and underwriting said they were not a "recognized manufacturer." Do you remember if you used Huari, or any other details about the policies that might help my agent argue with underwriting?

My bikes were X-Treme's not EFun's and had a manufactuerer listed as Alpha Products International. Yeah, I know they're the importer - but whatever works...

Vehicle Identification Number

The VIN is really easy to understand, provided you have codes to guide you. (Except maybe for the check digit.) Note that the 10th digit tells you the year of the vehicle, give or take exactly 30 years. You can even learn what facility built it. The Chinese have a history throwing on whatever number they damn well please, which doens't please DMV's or insurance companies.

What was most likely an issue to the insurance company was the vehicle descriptor, 4th thru 8th digits. If you have the same number as an SUV, they're going to have problems figuring out just what sort of policy to issue. The next thought I'd have is with the check digit that comes 9th, which a Chinese company may just throw on in there and get wrong. The insurance company will then be concerned that this is a phony VIN.

I wrote training materials at an insurance company, so I can tell you the number one concern in coverage is the law of averages. If one in ten will pay out, for example, they don't want 9 accounts and they don't want 11, they want 10. 9 won't bring enough revenue to cover for paying out a claim, and 11 risks that there'll be 2 claims. An oversimplification, but a valid one. So they want your vehicle in the right group, paying the right rate.

It costs 35 cents on the premium dollar to run the insurance company, so they only want to pay out about 65 cents on the dollar on claims. If they can keep all the income from investing the premiums, maybe 5 cents on the dollar right now, that's a handy profit. If they pay out 70 cents on the dollar, they only break even. The best way to guarantee a profit is to stick with the plan, and get your bike covered in the right program. In the wrong category you become a wild card, not worth the risk.

Keep in mind an insurance company will "Flat Cancel" your account altogether and issue s refund to get out from under the risk of paying out more than you're paying for that policy. If they don't have enough others of the same category to balance out a claim that is paid, they're just gambling and that's no way to run a railroad. (Yeah yeah, insurance company.)

Vehicle Identification Number

The VIN is really easy to understand, provided you have codes to guide you. (Except maybe for the check digit.) Note that the 10th digit tells you the year of the vehicle, give or take exactly 30 years. You can even learn what facility built it. The Chinese have a history throwing on whatever number they damn well please, which doens't please DMV's or insurance companies.

What was most likely an issue to the insurance company was the vehicle descriptor, 4th thru 8th digits. If you have the same number as an SUV, they're going to have problems figuring out just what sort of policy to issue. The next thought I'd have is with the check digit that comes 9th, which a Chinese company may just throw on in there and get wrong. The insurance company will then be concerned that this is a phony VIN.

Almost right - but not quite. Digits 4 through 8 are indeed the vehicle descriptor. However, the requirements of the information contained are different for motorcycles vs. cars vs. other stuff (see Table 1 in the second link below). Another thing to bear in mind is that the encoding/decoding of things like "body type" are defined by the manufacturer (and supplied to NHTSA in a document called the "49 CFR Part 565 Submission"). Thus, you may well have the same string of characters in digits 4 through 8 on your motorcycle and your SUV - but they'll mean different things.

The requirements for VINs is described here: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title49/49cfr565_main_02.tpl

The contents / structure of the VIN is described here: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=d5b295fd1e2ea832392033d4f9e59b8c&rgn=div8&view=text&node=49:6.1.2.3.31....

Here's a quick breakdown:

VIN Position 1 thru 3 - manufacturer identifier part one
VIN Position 4 - motorcycle type - as defined by manufacturer
VIN Position 5 - body type - as defined by manufacturer
VIN Position 6 - engine type - as defined by manufacturer
VIN Position 7 & 8 - net brake horsepower
VIN Position 9 - check digit
VIN Position 10 - Model Year
VIN Position 11 - Plant Location
VIN Position 12, 13 & 14 - for a low volume manufacturer this is the second part of the manufacturer identifier. For a high volume manufacturer this is the start of the serial number
VIN Position 15, 16 & 17 - serial number (sequential production number)

Our World Manufacturer Identification number is 1E9 / 458.