|
Motorcycle Insurance premiums are constantly rising.
Here are our tips on how to make yours cheap:
Actually DO
those common sense things that
reduce your chance of having to make any claims in the first place.
The true cost will always be far greater than you think. Loss of
No Claims Bonus (NCB), the excess, increased premium at renewal,
replacement transport, loss of earnings, form filling, negotiating
with insurance companies, hassle and delays ...it all adds up, and
there's no such thing as total cover.
Some VERY small modifications in your behaviour
will hugely improve the cost of your motorcycle insurance premiums
in the long term.
Take a long term perspective (say 4 years). Try and synchronize
ALL your vehicle and insurance purchasing. It means all the bills
come at the same time, but it avoids victim rates when you trade
vehicles mid policy, gives you (or your broker) more negotiating
leverage at the collective renewal time and gives you an extra years
NCB.
Bundle together your motorcycle insurance, security and training
budgets. There are modest discounts available for insurance company
approved security devices (check what the insurance company wants
BEFORE you buy anything new; see our Security
Tips section) and training, but the real financial benefit is
in claim prevention and building up additional NCB. Treat training
as a life time learning process; there's no better value after-market
performance accessory! Budget for at least an annual training activity
of some sort, whether it's with our in-house
experts, an on-track training school (such as California
Superbike School), Institute
of Advanced Motorcyclists, or whatever. You'll always learn
new things that will make you a better, incident free rider. And
you'll have fun too.
Be aware that the NCB isn't a No Acident Bonus.
If you have a "fault free" incident you may keep your
NCB, but find that your underlying premium has gone up as a result.
Insurance is little more than gambling (where the odds are always
in the bookies' favour), so consider self-insuring (obviously beyond
statutory Third Party Only Insurance). Insurance companies and their
brokers have huge infrastructures to maintain, shareholders to pay,
uninsured (see #1) and fraudulent claimants to pay for and, of course,
the government wants its taxation cut. Factor in the excess and
all the other true costs of a claim, and you can see that it's not
necessarily such a good deal. Put the difference between Third Party
Only (TPO) and Comprehensive premiums in an interest bearing account
(but you have to actually do it!), and if you take the practical
security and training precautions above, you should find yourself
building up a substantial rainy day fund. You will still build up
NCB on TPO cover in exactly the same way as Comprehensive.
#1. The Motor Insurance Bureau paid out £500 million
to the victims of uninsured motorists in 2003. This is paid out
of the premiums of honest motorists.
Once you've built up maximum NCB, consider paying the additional
premium to protect it.
Consider running a second small capacity bike, not just as a reserve
for when your main bike is off the road, but to build up a second
NCB. You can then transfer it to your main bike should it be necessary.
Let your insurance company know what you're doing. NCB can usually
be reused for up to 2 years after a policy expires.
ALWAYS shop around at renewal time. Insurance brokers rely on apathy
to maximize their margins. Hard negotiation is a key to cheap motorcycle
insurance.
Use the web. The brokers' sites are increasingly flexible and sophisticated
and you'll often find the premiums are lower. You can usually adjust
your details and immediately see the effect on your premium of adding
riders, level of cover, type of alarm, etc. Use automatic form fillers
like the AutoFill function in Google's Toolbar.
Save your quotations, then wait 24 hours and, if they haven't phoned
you, phone them and play them off against each other reduce your
premium further.
Don't be tempted to tell fibs (even small ones) on your application,
or do anything to invalidate your insurance (like riding without
an MOT) as insurance companies don't need an invitation not to pay
out on a policy. Tell them if you modify your bike, normal modifications
are unlikely to mean an increase in premium. If in doubt, tell them
(in writing). Little or no checking is done when taking out a policy,
but the assessor/police certainly do in the event of an incident.
Be very clear about any policy restrictions that may be imposed
on you by the insurance company. Make yourself a diary note to re-read
them every 3 months; it's soooo easy to get tripped up by forgetting
exactly what they were.
Check if the manufacturer of your bike (or bike to be) is running
any special insurance deals. This is frequently the case with new
entry level scooters/motorcycles for example (see below).
Oh yes, and try not to get any points on your license.... If you
consider yourself at particularly high risk of getting caught by
speed cameras, think about the GPS warning devices such as the bike
friendly Geodesy,
Road
Angel or the new TomTom
Rider. And, errr, don't ride and do drugs or alcohol and make
yourself totally uninsurable.
Related links: Motorcycle
Security | Motorcycle
Accident Advice | Car Insurance
Have you got any hot tips or motorcycle insurance
stories that you'd like to share? If so, visit MaxMoto's Message
Board on Motorcycle Insurance. To be really useful to our readers,
please include all the relevant info (5 comments).
Would you like to receive regular items like this?
And be entered into our regular prize draws? Then,
Join our Newsletter.
Page last updated:
Tuesday, 31-Jul-2007 18:37:32 BST
|
