Like any purchase, signing up for motorcycle insurance involves a certain amount of personal discretion and understanding of risks and rewards; however, we’ve got a few tips to help make the process easier.
How to buy motorcycle insurance
1) Make sure your application is accurate
Do you have any speeding tickets in the recent past? How many licensed motorcyclists are in your house? Will you be storing the bike inside, or outside? The sales agent will ask you all these questions, and more; if you give an incorrect answer, you could pay the price. The last thing you need is to have insurance on your new sportbike canceled a couple of weeks after buying it, when the insurance company finds out you neglected to mention a few speeding tickets. And you certainly don’t want to have your bike stolen, then have your payout denied because you had the machine under a tarp in the backyard instead of locked away in a garage.
2) Make sure you’re covered by your policy
How much will your policy pay you, if you’re injured in a crash and the other motorist’s insurance is insufficient, or if they don’t even have insurance? Your policy’s Accident Benefits (or some similar name) will cover your lost wages, your medical expenses, and (in a worst-case scenario) death and funeral expenses. Take a look at this number; if it’s not high enough, talk to your insurance agent about upping the coverage.
“An additional ‘excess’ or ‘underinsured’ policy can help protect an injured motorcycle rider from an underinsured or uninsured motorist,” says Brown.
“In Canada, most of us live near the border to the United States. Drivers in the US can operate their vehicles with little or no ‘third party coverage’ … If the driver has little or no insurance, the ‘excess’ or ‘underinsured’ policy will increase the offending motorist’s coverage to a much higher amount. This is very important because if someone doesn’t have enough insurance, they usually don’t have any assets to pay for the rider’s injuries.”
By ZAC KURYLYK
See Full Story at canadamotoguide.com
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