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Insurance... Pay to Play

Yes, I primarily insure for liability, but you have to have something worth protecting. It was always easier to decide not to have a dog nor a waterbed, but that 300g aquarium, I took the risk... We were on a slab ground floor and I had a $12/hr job with particle board furniture.
 
The insurance premiums for my 3 bikes remained the same as last year which is good news :ride
 
Times are hard for many folks now so insurance is one of the first things to go before roof over one's head, food, etc. As a result, the insurance industry is loosing their customer base and thus, increase rates across the board for many unfortunately.
 
I had Rider's Insurance for years and my total 1-YR for 3 sport bikes (08 R6, 15 R1M, 18 R1M) was $800 for $100k/$300k, $100 Ded Comp, $500 Ded Coll. I have 32 years riding experience, no tickets, no accidents, no claims in the last 10 years. Rider's is no longer insuring motorcycles in all West Coast states. All the insurance companies want $4,800 for the same coverage, if I go up to $1000/$1000 ded it only drops it down $500/bike so still at $3,300. I can drop full coverage, do just liability and then I am only down to $370/YR. This is ridiculous since this is just for my motorcycles... which I only use for recreational, I work from home, and I have 4 cars/trucks that I use if I ever need to do any regular driving; so I maybe put 1,000mi on each bike a year.

My question is there any umbrella, home-owners add-on, anything out there that makes more sense? I am considering self-insuring with a bond, buying/renting a place outside of CA and then bringing the bikes back for the summers to "visit" California... which is completely legal and you can drive out of state vehicles here for 90 days before you have to register them here.
 
do you have any classic cars Crash?
 
Holeshot said:
do you have any classic cars Crash?
Click to expand...

I wish! All out of garage space right now. If I get some acres in the Central Valley with a workshop then the fun might start.

All my toys are newer (less than 10 years old), with the exception of one race/track bike.
 
I switched from Allstate to Famers and it was a savings. Car insurance with Allstate really went up last time after an accident, Farmers was much more reasonable. Not sure I like Allstate, their claims process was terrible.
 
I have checked Allstate, Farmers, State Farm, Geico, Progressive, and Dairyland so far and they are all bad to worse. At this point, I would be forced to drive a bike off the cliff each year purposely to make full coverage make any possible sense. It is just nuts, I was going to trade up to the 2024 R1M and the price out the door is $32,000. All the car and motorcycle dealerships are saying that they are having trouble selling vehicles not only because they are all stupid expensive, but because people can't afford the insurance. New reason to leave California unlocked... car/motorcycle insurance.
 
I have Progressive on the five bikes, $110K liability only, for a few hundred bucks a year. I have a $2M umbrella with Liberty Mutual because that is the only real risk in my life, besides death.
Lib Mo is leaving the umbrella market, so I have to rethink this all.
My S2000 is with Hagerty.
This thread helps the rethink.
 
Oh, I was gonna start with insurance is just gambling, like going to Vegas. I don’t do Vegas, but I roll the dice with insurance, because I am a hella good driver/ rider.

As are we all.
 
CrashNBurn said:
I wish! All out of garage space right now. If I get some acres in the Central Valley with a workshop then the fun might start.

All my toys are newer (less than 10 years old), with the exception of one race/track bike.
Click to expand...

My stuff's on a Hagerty policy and the bikes are super cheap. Maybe give them a call on insuring your CB400f classic Honda and see what rates they give if you add the other bikes too. Maybe throw something like a 79 T/A in there too...worth a shot.
 
I have tried multiple states to see if that helped any and CA was still the cheapest. I tried CA San Jose, CA Manteca, NV Las Vegas, ID Meridian, MT Kalispell and CA Manteca was the lowest.

Liability is pretty much next to nothing, no matter how many bikes you put it is $370 to $500 a year total for all the bikes. Increasing the liability from the min to the max will have a small impact. Adding Uninsured Motorist is an additional $500/bike (which on a side note the states should make that illegal, since no one should be driving without insurance and that is their job to make sure everyone has insurance).

Full coverage is where the nut cruncher is and that will add $1000 to $1800 per bike, depending on deductible amounts.

So here is where my head is... I am just going to register the bikes for the full year with the state, but I am going to have the insurance company put them into storage for the winter, then I will move it from liability to full coverage in the summer/depending on when I want to drive them.

Some of the thoughts about adding a cheaper/older bike to the policy doesn't work... because insurance companies consider all motorcycles to recreational bikes. There is no primary bike for insurance purposes and they don't give you a multi-bike discount. Same freaking thing when it comes to my cars... even though I can't drive more than one at a time they still screw you.

With so many people hurting right now, the economy is so screwed up, and with the police not enforcing any laws, I really need to think about bike theft and that is my primary motivation for wanting full coverage. Plus with so many people not able to afford insurance now, you also need to really consider uninsured motorist. It all bad news... I am going to have to find a cheaper hobby... air planes are cheaper than motorcycles at this point bc at least I can write off the air plane as a business expense.
 
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Some sad shit swirling around the insurance toilet bowel.

I will be re-opping my Old 1975 Kawi. I will reach out to Haggerty to get a quote. Sounds like if you have old you can add a new one??
 
budman said:
Some sad shit swirling around the insurance toilet bowel.

I will be re-opping my Old 1975 Kawi. I will reach out to Haggerty to get a quote. Sounds like if you have old you can add a new one??
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As far as I can tell, if you have an current existing policy... you can change it. If you want to start a new policy, some insurance companies are no longer insuring California. It is bad for auto/motorcycle but even worse for home owner's insurance, because a lot of the insurance took a bath on the fires that PG&E caused by not burying the electrical wires/cutting back all the trees so that downed wires wouldn't cause an electrical fire.

I have only sport bikes, so I am going to get screwed the worst. If you have other types of bikes, then things are not anywhere near as bad as they are for me. Also, if I was willing to go without full coverage, just liability isn't bad at all.

Budman, on a 1975 Kawi... I wouldn't do full coverage. My bikes are still worth $25,000 each bc of all the mods so that is the only reason why I need to consider full coverage. I am more worried about vandalism, theft, and uninsured motorists than I am about my own riding; otherwise I would just do liability only and roll the dice.
 
I currently have my Multi with Allstate.

I will give them a shot and and Haggerty too.
The old Kawi could be worth near 20 when done.. at least 16K so likely still go full, but if I can do a 6 month policy then that will work.
 
I didn't know that Hargerty was only for classics vehicles... so they denied me because my motorcycle isn't over 20 years old. Just FYI, for anyone else wondering if there was a deal to be had. The guy was super vague that if I had a classic and then wanted to add a 2015 whether or not they would allow it. So if you have an older vehicle, you may want to try seeing if you start with just that if they will let you add a newer one to the same policy.
 
budman said:
Some sad shit swirling around the insurance toilet bowel.

I will be re-opping my Old 1975 Kawi. I will reach out to Haggerty to get a quote. Sounds like if you have old you can add a new one??
Click to expand...

Hagerty is made for the classic stuff, but they'll take current specialized units as well. My policy is a mix of classic and current vintage, but specially "weekend" cars. They're not for everyday drivers, for the most part. Example: I've got a 69' Charger and 21' C8 on my policy and a 76 CB400F and several newer (2023 V4S, 2021 Streetfighter V4S) models. It's worth a shot for sure, but the idea with Hagerty is these are weekend drivers/ rides which makes the insurance per vehicle pretty darn cheap. They do stated value/ agreed value for insured vehicle values. The stated value takes into account mods, etc and it's an excellent feature. I've yet to make a claim through them, but they've been excellent so far.

CrashNBurn said:
I didn't know that Hargerty was only for classics vehicles... so they denied me because my motorcycle isn't over 20 years old. Just FYI, for anyone else wondering if there was a deal to be had. The guy was super vague that if I had a classic and then wanted to add a 2015 whether or not they would allow it. So if you have an older vehicle, you may want to try seeing if you start with just that if they will let you add a newer one to the same policy.
Click to expand...

I suggested a cheaper classic cause it should hold value and may be the way to leverage other bikes. The key is "weekend/ occasional" rides. Hagerty has it figured this limits risk on those bikes. Because I have cars on the policy also, I'm not sure how a bike only policy would look. FWIW, I have my race bikes insured on the policy as well, but the sole reason is my concern of theft.
 
Thanks Berto.... Great info :thumbup
 
Holeshot said:
I suggested a cheaper classic cause it should hold value and may be the way to leverage other bikes. The key is "weekend/ occasional" rides. Hagerty has it figured this limits risk on those bikes. Because I have cars on the policy also, I'm not sure how a bike only policy would look. FWIW, I have my race bikes insured on the policy as well, but the sole reason is my concern of theft.
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If you are only worried about theft, you *might* be able to have your home owner's policy cover the race bikes. It would be pennies on the dollar to do so if they did.

Unless you were paying for the registration of the race bikes even though you were not putting them on the street, it might be considered something else other than motorcycle. Technically, unless you are actually in a race (a competitive timed event), the insurance companies classify track time as defensive instruction and safety course. Some insurance don't even ask you if the bike is being used for racing. Without showing my hand too much, I have paid for plates for my race bikes and insured them just like a regular street bike for many years. Luckily, I haven't had to make any claims to see how the insurance company felt when they see a full race bike instead of a street bike, but then again I have been paying for years and no claims.

I was able to get Geico to insure my toy hauler trailer and I put $100,000 of "content" insurance on it to cover all my tools, gear, and even the motorcycles. Technically, that might be another way to cover theft of the race bikes without insuring them directly.
 
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