Motorcycle Insurance: What are Your Options to Protect Your Bike?
By Dermound Becker
Special to USInsurance.com
When you are shopping around for insurance for your motorcycle, it is tempting to get the minimum required insurance. However, you need to realize that basic insurance plans only cover other people, they will not pay a dime to you if you get into an accident that is your fault. You could end up with a totaled bike and medical bills you can’t afford. To avoid these risks, consider the different types of coverage you can get to protect yourself, your riders and your motorcycle.
Collision Coverage: This type of insurance will cover you if you hit something. However, collision insurance will not cover injury to you or a rider, and may not cover the total cost to repair your bike.
Comprehensive: This covers everything that collision covers, but also a lot more. Anything that happens to your bike that is caused by another person is covered. This includes if someone steals it, damages it, vandalism, acts of God such as tornados, a collision with an animal, and more. If you have a loan to pay for your bike, most likely you are required by the loan company to have this type of insurance.
Medical Payments: You can get additional insurance that will pay for any medical costs that may be incurred by you or your rider in case of an accident.
Added Equipment: You can get additional insurance that will cover any special equipment you have put into or on your bike. Not all comprehensive insurance policies will cover specialized equipment, and you do not want to have to replace this out of your own pocket. This type of policy will also cover your saddlebags, leathers, gloves and helmet.
Towing and Roadside Assistance: This will allow you to get a repair person to come to you if you break down somewhere. While they will not do any major repairs for you on the spot, they will help with flat tires, gasoline, jump starts and things like that. And towing will pay if you need to have your bike towed to a repair shop or your home.
Rental Reimbursement: If your bike ends up in the shop for repairs, this will provide you with a rental to drive while the bike is in the shop. If the bike is your primary mode of transportation, you really need this type of coverage.
It will pay you in the long run to shop around for the best auto insurance plan you can afford. Having everything covered will give you peace of mind that, should anything ever happen, you will be totally covered.
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