Scooter accidents in Bali, and the licence rule behind them

Everyone who has spent a week in Bali has a scooter story. The official framing is less casual: "Traffic discipline is very poor and there has been a large increase in moped and motorbike accidents – some fatal – in Bali."

This is the single most common way a healthy foreign resident in Bali ends up in hospital. Not dengue, not the water — the bike.

Source: UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office — Indonesia travel advice (full advisory), read 24 September 2026.

Here is the part that turns an accident into a financial catastrophe.

The advice states: "You cannot drive using your UK driving licence. You can drive using an International Driving Permit (IDP) issued by the UK. UK nationals who live in Indonesia and have a limited stay permit card (KITAS) can apply for an Indonesian national driving licence."

Three things follow. A UK licence alone is not enough. An IDP covers you as a visitor. And if you live there on a KITAS, the Indonesian national licence is the route available to you.

There is a further trap inside the IDP: it must cover the category you are riding. A car-only IDP does not authorise a motorbike, and plenty of riders discover this after the fact.

Source: UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office — Indonesia travel advice (full advisory), read 24 September 2026.

The advice puts the two sentences side by side deliberately: "Before driving, riding or hiring any type of vehicle, ensure that you have the appropriate licence to do so. Check you are covered with your travel insurance company."

Insurers generally exclude injury sustained while riding without a valid licence for the vehicle. That is not a technicality invented for Indonesia — it is standard policy wording. The Indonesian specific is simply that the licence bar is higher than visitors assume.

So the failure mode is: rent a scooter on a UK licence because the rental shop does not ask, come off it at low speed, and discover the exclusion at the hospital rather than the roadside.

A scooter injury is rarely a single consultation. It is imaging, often orthopaedic work, sometimes surgery, then follow-up — and road rash that gets infected in a tropical climate has its own trajectory.

Indonesia's public scheme will not absorb it for most foreign residents: Presidential Regulation 82 of 2018 defines participants as including foreigners who have worked here at least six months, which does not describe a retiree or a remote worker paid from abroad.

And the serious end runs offshore. For complex trauma the pathway from Bali is Singapore, and the Foreign Office states medical evacuation can cost tens of thousands of pounds.

Source: Peraturan Presiden No. 82 Tahun 2018 tentang Jaminan Kesehatan, Pasal 1 angka 2 — JDIH BPK, read 24 September 2026.

• Get an IDP before you fly, with the motorcycle category on it — or the Indonesian licence if you hold a KITAS.
• Ask your insurer directly whether motorbike riding is covered, at what engine size, and what licence they require. Get the answer in writing.
• Wear a helmet in good condition. The advice says so explicitly, and it is also what most policies expect.
• Check evacuation is included, given where serious trauma is treated.

We are an insurance introducer, not an insurer. Pre-existing conditions are excluded and cover is governed by the Regency Assurance policy wording — including its terms on motorised vehicles, which is a conversation worth having before you rent anything.