If you own both a car and a motorcycle you may wonder if you can get bike insurance and auto insurance on one policy? Usually the answer is no you will need to get a separate policy for your bike. The reason for this is that there are some pretty important differences in the way that bikes and cars are insured. It isn’t really practical to insure them both on one policy.
The reason that you can’t normally get bike insurance and auto insurance in one policy is that there are some pretty important difference in what is covered from one to the other. The biggest difference involves personal injury coverage. Generally speaking when a car accident occurs the people in the car are covered for any injuries they suffer. This isn’t true for motorcycles, riders need to purchase separate personal injury insurance. They also need to purchase it for their rider.
There are also differences in liability coverage from a bike to a car, this time to the benefit of the motorcyclist. The reason that you are required by law to have insurance is for the liability coverage, it is to protect other people in the event you cause an accident. According to the Carole Nash Insurance Consultants, the amount of damage you can do to somebody else on a motorcycle is fairly limited, the rider is far more likely to get hurt. That means that the premiums on a bike are much lower than they would be for a car. If you were to put them on the same policy you would end up paying much higher premiums than would otherwise be necessary since they would be based on the damage the car could do.
Another problem with insuring your bike and your car on the same policy is that you may need different types of coverage. This is especially true for comprehensive coverage. If you borrowed money to buy your bike the lender will almost certainly require you to have comprehensive insurance. This isn’t the case for a car. The reason for this is that in an accident a bike usually gets written off and loses all of it’s value. Cars can usually be repaired and put back on the road after the accident. From the lenders perspective they need to protect themselves if your bike does get totalled. There is little reason for you to continue making the payments if you no longer have the bike.
Although it may seem more convenient to put your bike and your car on one insurance policy it isn’t really practical. Although they have a lot of similarities cars and motorcycles are not the same. There are some important differences and these differences are reflected in the way they are insured.