I know there is an MC Insurance Discussion sub-area under the General H-D Forums heading, but i'm really not wanting to know about insurance and/or how much to pay.

My Question is: Do most of you really know what insurance coverage you have, and specifically, do you know the amount of coverage you have on the "Optional or Added Equipment" you have put on your Touring bike?

Just to put this into some perspective, a friend of mine who has a fairly new fully loaded UL, was recently rear ended...by another biker no less...right in front of two LEO's blocking traffic! He is OK, only suffering some minor bumps and bruises, but his bike was totaled. This made me think about my new ride and how my coverage would do to replace it in a similar situation.

So I decided to add up the replacement cost for all the accessories I have installed on my '19 SGS that was not part of the MSRP of the bike.

I was staggered when I realized this number came out to be just short of $16K. (I did not pay quite that much, but that is the 2019 retail prices for the equipment and does not even include dealer/vendor labor cost to install many of the items and/or shipping and taxes.)

Yes, my Insurance policy would replace the bike itself, but I only had $1000 worth of "Optional or Added Equipment" coverage. Hell, the Suspension Technologies Mechanical Reversing Pully I had installed cost me $2K, alone, not to mention the few thousands I spent on just under the fairing items including WHIM, CB, XM, INNOVV-K2, etc., and then there is Lighting...lots of LED lighting... the cost of which adds up real fast.

It is safe to say I just returned from sitting down with my Insurance agent and upped the "Optional or Added Equipment" coverage to $15K. It added quite a few $$$ to the policy price, but I figure "better safe than sorry".

Although many of you know this, just consider this a "WAKE UP" message/question for those of you, who like me, may have never given this subject a second thought.

 

You should have been asked when you bought your insurance. Maybe time for a new agent.

 

As Erik Buell once said "It's just money"

 

My wife and I get our insurance on our bikes through H-D Insurance (Progressive) and manage the policy exclusively online. As such, one of the fields is the dollar amount of extras you want to cover. You don't need to specify what the add-ons are, just the amount of additional coverage you want.

I would imagine that if you specified you wanted an extra $30k in coverage that you'd probably have to start producing receipts for the add-ons. for the $5k in extras each of us has on our policy, no receipts are required.

 

I insure my bike through State Farm, and their policy is to simply have receipts and photographs of the add-ons and they are covered with no additional premium. Hope I never have to test them on that.

 

Laws regarding vehicle insurance vary widely from state to state. And I am very happy with State Farm for my bike, cages, home, umbrella liability, etc. but my agent tells me State Farm does not sell "add on" insurance coverage for bikes in KY.

 

Make sure you understand what you bought with that additional coverage. If it's a declared or stated value, fine, you get that $15k as a simple payment. But if it's the more typical current value, you're still only going to get a fraction of the price you paid for the parts.

 

My Progressive policy states they cover $3000 for no extra cost. I pay to get $6000 more

 

Just went thru this with my wife’s bike. We have American Family and I have the 3500 rider for accessories, and an additional 1000 for safety gear. No extra cost for these on premium. They paid out the 1000 for safety gear immediately, and were fair in their offer on the base bike. However, I had to fight with them over the accessories. In the end I had to provide a list of all extras on the bike and a price for each. They paid the full 3500, but that was on about 8000 worth of accessories. They only pay about 40% of new price and no labor. I was good with that as 3500 was the max on my policy. I have since made many changes to my bike ins. The main one being adjusting the medical from 5000 to 25000 per person. It raises the premium about $7-8 per bike but is so worth it. Her er bill was 13,000: the ins paid 5,000 and her work ins (Teacher) paid about 5000 leaving her with a 3000 bill but deductible met. I also upped the accessories rider on my bikes. It was an expensive education in insurance. Read your Policy before you have an accident and make changes. Luckily she had no major injuries. In the end that’s all that matters.

 

You are probably correct about them asking. However, when I bought my '18 Heritage, I just called up my agent and asked for coverage based on the loan I was taking out for it. There wasn't more than $1K of extras over MSRP comming with the bike. So If they asked at that time, that amount was OK with me. When I bought the Glide, I again called them up and gave them the loan amount and I remember saying; "give me the same coverage as the heritage". At that time there actually was a few thousand dollars in accessories, but I did not think to tell them that.

Since then, I have added much of the costly items as I mentioned, not thinking about that coverage until now.

I really can't blame the agent as I did not question the amount of coverage I had. I now know better and fortunately I fixed it before I had any reason to use it.