Similar to car insurance, in most cases, young motorbike riders have to pay a higher insurance premium due to the fact they’ve probably only recently passed their tests and don’t have much experience out on the road just yet.
Here’s the different types of motorbike insurance cover available for young riders and some tips on how to keep the cost of the insurance policy down:
Fully Comprehensive
This is the highest level of insurance cover you can get on the market. Regardless of whether the accident is your fault or not, this level of cover will pay out for damages to your bike in any type of incident. Any other party involved in the accident is also covered, along with their vehicle. With comprehensive cover, fire and theft is also included, so if your bike is damaged by fire or is stolen you still have cover.
Third party, fire and theft
As the name suggests, this type of insurance covers you for fire and theft, so if your bike gets damaged by fire, or gets stolen, you are covered.
However, for an accident, this type of insurance only covers the Third Party but does not pay out if you have an accident that was your fault. That means anybody else involved is able to claim compensation for any damage caused by you.
Third party only
The most basic form of motorbike insurance. Covered here is the cost of damage or injury to another person or vehicle if the accident was your fault. Damage to your bike is not covered.
Tips to keep your insurance premium down
If you are a young rider, there are a number of things you can do on and off the road to try and make sure your insurance premium doesn’t creep up too high:
- Keep your bike safe – reducing the likelihood that your bike will be stolen by keeping your bike in a secure location, with proper locks and even with security devices should help reduce the cost of your insurance.
- Don’t modify – whilst you’re new to riding, unless for security reasons, modifying your bike is best avoided. As you may know, modifications usually increase the value and speed of your bike which insurers can view as an increased risk.
- Go for a smaller engine – less powerful and found on less expensive bikes, having a bike with a smaller engine is lower risk for insurers to insure. Which will likely help keep your costs down.
- Advanced qualifications – getting some enhanced motorbike qualifications alongside your license, for example, the DVSA certificate, can help keep insurance costs from getting too high.
- Keep safe on the roads – it sounds obvious but keeping to the speed limit and staying accident free helps keep your insurance costs down. Each time you make a claim the cost of your insurance will increase.
Having inflated insurance costs as a new rider is to be expected when you’re out on the roads for the first time, but keep in mind the above tips and as you progress and gain experience the amount you pay for your insurance should come down.
