The Policy You Ought to Have
If that’s the minimum, what’s a really solid policy look like? It looks like the above, but with these changes:
- Bodily Injury Liability Coverage and Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Bodily Injury Coverage: $250,000/$500,000, with a $1 or $2 million “umbrella” on both types of coverage (see below);
- Property Damage Liability Coverage of $50,000, and;
- Personal Injury Protection of $100,000.00.
Yeah, the ideal policy is going to cost you some money. But it won’t cost you anything like what a wreck will cost you if you don’t have enough insurance. At the next “bike night” look around. See anyone who has been in a wreck? It happens – and it happens to bikers way more often than it should. Protect yourself. The last thing you need as you are recovering from a wreck is the worry of bill collectors, lawyers, and bankruptcy.
“Umbrella” coverage gives you a lot of extra coverage for not that much more money – talk to your agent about it! You usually have to have pretty high limits on the underlying policy, but it is worth it when you need it.
There are a lot of good insurance companies and good insurance agents out there. Some know bikes and some don’t. Several companies are going out of their way to attract bike owners as customers. Talk to several agents. See if they know what you are talking about when it comes to the special needs of bike owners and riders. But most of all – protect yourself. You don’t know despair until you have been laying in a hospital bed because some idiot ran over your bike and you get a letter telling you that they didn’t have any insurance and/or they just filed bankruptcy. Or until you get sued for way more money than you have coverage for. If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will take care of you. Ride to live and live to ride – without the worries of what will happen if you have a bad day.
Taken from: What you Need to Know about Motorcycle Insurance
