Motorcycle Insurance: Need To Know!
Why buy motorcycle insurance?
The big one: liability coverage
This is the legally required coverage most people think of when they talk about insurance. It breaks down into two categories:
- Bodily injury liability: Can pay for medical bills, pain and suffering, and loss of wages for people you kill or injure in an accident you cause. Sometimes you don’t have to be completely at fault. Even if you’re partially responsible for the accident, you might still have to pay.
- Property damage liability: Can pay for repairing or replacing the property of other people, like cars, telephone poles and so forth.
This coverage will also pay for your defense costs if you’re sued because of an accident.
Consider buying more than the minimum amount of coverage required in your state.
Optional but important: protection for you
Although these coverages are usually optional, they all protect you and your property directly.
- Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage: Can cover expenses caused by other drivers with little (underinsured) or no (uninsured) auto insurance. It can cover things like your medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering. It even protects your riders and other people covered by your policy while they’re riding in/on other vehicles or when they’re pedestrians.
- Medical payments coverage or personal injury protection (PIP): Can cover a small amount of medical or funeral expenses (or both) for you and your riders, in addition to other people covered by your policy while they’re riding in/on other vehicles or when they’re pedestrians.
- Comprehensive insurance: Can pay for damage to your bike not related to an accident (e.g., fire, flood, vandalism, theft and animal collisions).
- Collision: Can pay to repair or replace your motorcycle if it’s damaged in an accident. It doesn’t matter who caused the accident – it could even be with a tree. Animals don’t count, however.
Even more coverage
These are some of the smaller and most-overlooked coverages, but they’re all relatively cheap for the protection they provide.
- Accessory coverage: Can pay for damage to or loss of accessories like modifications, custom paint, safety equipment, wheels and more.
- Roadside assistance: Can cover towing, minor repairs, and fuel delivery if your bike breaks down, gets stuck near the road or runs out of fluids.
- Rental coverage: Can cover the cost of renting a replacement motorcycle if yours is in an accident.
- Trailer coverage: Covers a trailer used to transport your bike.
- Trip interruption coverage: Covers expenses like food and lodging if your bike breaks down away from home.
Discounts and savings
Many motorcycle insurance discounts are similar to auto insurance discounts. These are some special ones for riders:
- Motorcycle safety training classes (bonus points if you’re an instructor)
- Riders club membership
- Theft recovery systems
