How much difference can there be between motorcycle insurance and car insurance? That’s a good question. Considering a motorcycle has two wheels, a car has four, motorcycle insurance should be half the price. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. In concept, cars and motorcycles are quite similar. However, the similarities end at the concept level. In practice, they are treated very differently by insurance companies.
How good is your insurance company? You might know their TV ads or their radio jingles, but do you know if they’re reliable about paying claims? Find the best insurance companies in your state by clicking the button below.
What You Need to Know About Motorcycle Insurance
Here are the three key differences between motorcycle insurance and car insurance
- Motorcycle insurance is more expensive.
- Motorcycle insurance may be optional.
- Personal injuries might not be covered when riding a motorcycle.
Let’s look at each of these individually.
Motorcycle Insurance is More Expensive
Motorcycles are inexpensive compared to cars. However, there are few key points that drive the cost of insurance higher. First, the likelihood of an accident is greater than when driving or riding in a car. Second, the likelihood of injury is also greater than when driving or riding in a car. We’ve seen estimates that vary from five to nine times greater probability of being injured on a motorcycle than in a car. Third, the likelihood of a fatality is 28.5 times higher than when riding in a car. The 28.5 times figure is based on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Motorcycle Insurance May be Optional
Like car insurance, most states require you to have motorcycle insurance. However, Florida, Montana and Washington don’t. While Washington and Montana have no requirement for insurance. Florida is different. Florida requires you to wear a helmet unless you have at least $10,000 of coverage.
Personal Injuries Might Not be Covered
States with Personal Injury Protection (PIP) have laws where your own insurance typically covers your injuries, no matter who is at fault. States with some variation of these laws include: Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Utah.
If you live in one of these states, be sure to know the PIP laws. You can get information on how the PIP laws effect you by clicking the links above. In Massachusetts, for example, motorcycles are exempt from PIP laws. This means you and your passengers would not be covered by your insurance if injured while riding a motorcycle.
Time to Ride
With the three points above all figured out, it’s time to ride. It’s a beautiful spring day. A nice ride on the bike would be great fun. However, there’s one more important question to answer…
How Good is Your Insurance?
This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I know this topic very well. After getting hit by a car I found out my health insurance, the insurance of the driver that hit me — 100% at fault — and my own auto insurance would not cover all my medical bills. Call me naive, but I didn’t think that could happen in America. I thought people and businesses had the best interests of other human beings at heart and would own up to their moral and legal responsibilities. Yes, call me naive.
In short, I had to pay the medical bills. After paying the bills, next I had to fight to recover the cost of these bills that were never my responsibility. If you want the gory details of how this process went, get the book I wrote on the subject, Injured Money. In summary, this was an ugly, time consuming process.
Now I’ve applied the lessons learned in the process described above to make sure no other family ever suffer what I did. I’m a firm believer that all consumers deserve to know how good their insurance is, before they file a claim.
Knowing how good your motorcycle insurance is can be even more important than other types of insurance. The reason is due to the increased likelihood of personal injuries in a motorcycle accident. Personal injuries almost always include hospital costs. Hospital costs add up fast. When the dollar amount is large, that’s when insurance companies look for ways not to pay the cost of claims. Some insurance companies don’t want to pay big claims. Small claims are fine, but when the payments become large, it’s a different situation. That’s when you start communicating with your insurance companies legal department instead of the claims department.
The transparency we bring to the insurance industry is designed to ensure you know which companies are like mine were. That way you can avoid them. You can also find out which companies honor their promise to protect you. That way you can buy your insurance from them.
Checkout Your Motorcycle Insurance
ValChoice analyzes nearly every motorcycle, car and home insurance company that sells insurance in the U.S. Find out about your motorcycle insurance company using our free service. It’s easy. All you need to do is click below and select your insurance company. We will send you a free report card on the company that insures your motorcycle. Clicking the link will take you to the car insurance product, but all motorcycle insurance companies are included.
Be sure to identify the actual company you buy your motorcycle insurance from. Very likely this is a different company than your car insurance. The name may sound the same. Nevertheless, it’s likely different. Check your bill or call you agent to know the name of the company. Next, get a free report from us on that company.
Click for a Free Rating
If the company gets a good rating from us, tell a friend. If they don’t get a good rating, change to a better company.
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