Bike insurance coverage, to low, or ok?

[Panzer]

My bike insurance is about to expire.
Here is what I have now with Foremost:

Liability=Bodily injury $50,000 ea pers/ $100,00 ea accident
Passanger liability
Ped basic first party ben= $5,000 ea accident
property damage= $25,000 ea accident

Part C - uninsured motorist
uninsured motorist BI-unstacked= $50,000 ea pers/ $100,000 ea accident
uninsured mtrst BI-unstacked= $50,000 ea pers/ $100,000 ea accident

Part D-Damage to your vehicle
Collision= acv less $250.00 deductible
Other then collision= acv less $250.00 deductible
Additional coverages
Optional equipment= acv not to exceed $3,500

My question is, am I carrying enough to be safe from being sued?
How much are you carrying in compareson, just so I know if I should increase?


TIA,
Panzer

[specialx1]

you mean to tell me that they even insure you 

[Panzer]

Great, you had to be the first to reply, I might have known.   

Oh wait........yes they do insure the likes of me. 

[08blackstreetglide]

Panzer
Here's what I have
Bodily injury liability $100,000 to 300,000
property damage liability $100,000 each accident
medical payments and death benefit $2,000 each person each accident
comprehensive actual cash value less $500.00 deductible
collision actual cash value less $500.00 deductible
uninsured motorist $100,000 each person $300,000 each accident
uninsured motorist property damage $10,000 each accident
Is this too much?? I don't have a clue!

[Panzer]

Quote:
Is this too much?? I don't have a clue!
Me either, that's why I asked.  Let's go have a beer, I'm buying.

[CraigArizona85248]

Panzer,

How much insurance you carry is largely dependent on how much you have to lose.  For example, if you rent a house and you really don't have much in the way of savings or other assets, you might be able to get away with less insurance.  On the other hand if you have a lot of savings, or a lot of equity in your house, those things could potentially be at risk if you are underinsured.  Let's say you have $500,000 in savings and you get in an accident that injures someone badly.  If you have $100,000 of insurance coverage and the medical bills are $300,000, the injured person can sue you for the amount above the $100,000 of coverage.  And since you have the extra $200,000 in savings, you could end up paying it out of your own pocket.

Sorry for the not so simple answer, but the question is more complicated then it might appear.  You have to protect your assets while at the same time keeping your insurance costs as reasonable as possible.  It's a matter of balancing the risks against the cost of the premiums.

-Craig

[slo-poke 03]

You could also get an umbrella policy on top of ever thing, I think it goes by millions as in 1  2 as much as you feel you need. I believe it is only like 80 or 100 dollars per mil./year on top of your regular policy, but they may/probabely require some what higher coverage but not sky high. So yeah who has that kind of money....but think of louyers/leagal support you would get from the insurance company if they had that kind of money on the line. They would have to go through all of that before they got to you. But WTF do I know... not much, this could all be wrong but I bet there is some one here who does know about it and may chime in.

[CraigArizona85248]

slo-poke,

I carry a umbrella policy like you are describing.  It requires that I max out the limits on all my vehicles to 300,000/500,000.  When I first got the policy it was $250/yr for an extra $1M liability coverage.  When my step-son got a drivers license it doubled to $500/yr.  He moved out last year and is no longer a "member of the household" so we'll see if the premium drops back to something more reasonable.

BUT... the requirement to max out all my vehicle coverages really hits the pocket book hard.

-Craig

[thunderalley3]

I learned a valuable lesson about insurance in 2003. Uninsured, Underinsured and medical payments are very important. I got broadsided by someone pulling out of a parking lot, and sending me into a van stopped in a left turn lane. Long story short, they had $10k in total insurance, the bare minimum. I had decent, but not great coverage. It shattered my wrist and hand, and many stitches in my leg. Needless to say my insurance had to pay to fix my bike, no fault state so everyone is responsible. When my surgeries were done on my hand and wrist it was over $130k. I had $100k and her $10k still left $20k for my health insurance to pay,and then they attatch a lean to you as it was motor vehicle related. I had to hire an attorney, got a judgement against her for the $20k, and never saw a penny, So I wound up paying my health insurance off to get rid of the lean. Buy all that you can afford.

[FLHTCUSE3]

this is a great senario,

of how things can go bad.

Biker going down the street, everything is cool and a car comes out in front and knocks biker over curb and into a pedestrian.

Car has no insurance, biker has min medical but only 10k Bodily injury.

The buck always stops at who has the most money.

Car did not have any, Biker had min, was not even bikers fault but he is hung out to dry.

The pedestrian was not hurt that bad but medical exceeded all insurance.

[Rags722]

Panzer,
Unless you live in a cardboard box, I think you are way underinsured. Craig is right, to a large degree you need to build your liability coverage on what your assets are ( and if you have a family to support or not).  However, you also need to think about covering yourself against under/uninsured driver protection.  If someone smacks you and you wind up needed multiple surgeries and months in the hosp, how far do you think what you have is going to go?  What happens to YOU when that runs out?  For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would have multiple vehicles and NOT have the coverages stacked, even if it costs a few bucks more to do it.
I have State Farm, and 4 vehicles between me and the wife.. Somehow, I forgot to stack one of them.  About 10 years ago, I was helping a friend in his driveway working on a vehicle that he had dropped coverage because it was in storage.  Long story short, it fell off the jacks and crushed me.  Couldn't sue his vehicle policy because there was none, would not sue a friend because I'll never profit at the expense of a friend, his homeowners would not cover it because it was a moving vehicle accident ( down is a direction).  Lo and behold, MY un/under insured coverage did cover it, but only for the value of the 3 stacked vehicles.  In short, had I remembered to ask them to stack the 4th vehicle, I would have had 80K instead of 60K to cover my medical costs... my bad.

[FXDBI]

Well up here in the Great White North ,no insurance=no vehicle. Let it expire get caught or have a accident its a min. $3500 fine.  When you renew your plates $2 of the cost goes into a fund to cover unsatisfied judgements. Medical coverage is paid for by the provincial government has well now since Jan 1 this year. Cabin fever season is longer has well here heat of the day today was -25c ....Bob

[thunderalley3]

Bob, I think mandatory insurance is a fantastic law. We here in the sunny south, (Florida) are not required to have motorcycle insurance,,,,I think that is about as stupid as it gets. Motor vehicle insurance is mandatory, motorcycle is not,,,,WOW. But when you research our insurance coverage here it is scary. Based by county, when you get near Miami more than 1/2 of the vehicles on the road are not insured. It stinks when I pay almost $1200 a year for uninsured motorist, 4 cars, 3 motorcycles so that someone else does not pay for any insurance.

Loose 

[deathwish]

It is to low and depending on what you own it todays world, carry the million dollar umbrella policy. Also I have no Idea where you live but in Wi., policies have Under Insured. For cars, insurance companies are required to ask if you want it, for Motorcycles they are not. Most people don't have it. Why do you need it? If you have underinsured and the other party has little insurance or not enough insurance to cover the accident then your policy kicks in and you can collect double the claim.

[Panzer]

Thanks guys, all responces are well noted.
Now I'm gonna look at this policy again and probably make some changes.

[marc]

I would bump it up some...In NJ I carry bodily injury of $100,000 each person $300,000 each accident...Property damage liability of $50,000...Actual cash value less $500.00 for collision, fire, theft & comprehensive...Also have $8,000 for chrome and other crap...Bodily injury, uninsured/underinsured of $100,000 each person $300,000 each accident...Property damage uninsured/underinsured of $50,000...Premium is $516 through Rider...

[Hossamania]

I upped my property damage to $100,000. I figured if I'm doing a burnout and lose it (impossible!) and hit 4 new Harleys, that's about $100,000. Another reason to never say "Watch this!"

[CraigArizona85248]

... Another reason to never say "Watch this!"

And never ever say "Hold my beer and watch this!" 

[Hossamania]

"Hold my beer and watch this!"  Sounds like standard operating procedure in Wisconsin!

[payday]

Panzer,

In my opinion, you do not have enough coverage. I carry 250/500 that is the max that Foremost will issue. I also carry a $2M Umbrella policy. It is all bases on your assets and future earnings. One incident and you could be between a rock and a hard place the rest of your life.

TS

[slo-poke 03]

Ok I asked my smater half last night how much our umbrella policy was as far as cost, of course she knew right go figure. Any way its about 180 a year for 2mil. May be cause we are old and dull but that does not seem to bad, but you do need to have higher regular coverage.

[CraigArizona85248]

Wow... I wish I could get that rate for my umbrella.  Figuring out liability insurance rates is about impossible.  So many factors... location, ages of people living in the house, credit rating (I got an 802, you'd think that wouldn't be a problem), driving record, etc.  Maybe it's time to shop around a little.

-Craig

[slo-poke 03]

I don't know Craig we have most of our stuuf with state farm, have been with'm for years. I have my bike with foremost though, state farm wanted nothing to do with the motorcycle. May be each local rep. is different, I really don't know.