What Happens With Insurance After a Motorcycle Accident Immediately After the Accident Hopefully, any accidents you’ll be involved in will be minor ones where no one gets carted off in an ambulance. In a single vehicle accident (i.e. the bike is crashed and no other vehicles are involved), you won’t need to do this step, obviously. But in a multiple vehicle accident, you’ll need to gather some critical information from each of the parties involved. This is not easy after a crash, believe me. Adrenaline isn’t intended to promote analytical thinking. If you need to, stop and take a short breather to gather your wits. Your first urge will be to get everything done as quickly as possible. Resist the urge. Take the time to get things right. Find a piece of paper and a pen and ask each driver for their driver’s license and insurance card. Then write down the following info for each driver: • full name • driver’s license number and state issued • phone number • insurance company name • insurance policy number If there were passengers in any vehicle, it’s a good idea to get their names and contact phone numbers also. Next, go to each vehicle and write down the license plate number. This would also be a good time to pull out your camera phone and take pictures of the vehicles and any damaged areas, just to keep everyone honest. If the police arrive on scene, ask for the police officer’s business card. At the very least, get the police officer’s name and phone number. You may not need this info, but it’s good to have.
Rule #1: Avoid Filing a Claim At All Costs The first rule of insurance is not filing a claim if you can avoid it. Of course, there’s a big exception to this rule: if you aren’t the one at fault, you’re probably going to file a claim against the other party’s insurance. If that’s the case, you can skip to the next section. But what if you’re at fault, or if this is a single vehicle accident? Then you need to decide if you’re going to file a claim, or fix the bike on your own. If you can get an estimate before contacting your insurance company, you’ll have a leg up in deciding whether to file a claim or not. The key thing to remember is if you’re still paying off the loan on your motorcycle, you have very little leverage with your insurance company if you file a claim. Why? Because you don’t own the bike. The bank does, and they will want their property restored to 100% pre-loss condition. Even if you’re at fault and the other vehicle’s driver files a claim against your insurance, you’re not obligated to file a claim. Imagine that conversation going something like this: • Your Insurance: “We’ve received a claim from someone’s insurance regarding an accident on such-and-such date, yadda-yadda-yadda. It appears your motorcycle was involved. Was there any damage to the bike?” • You: “Yes, but I’m going to fix it myself.” Don’t worry, what are they going to say? No? It’s in their best interest for you to pay for things yourself so they don’t have to! This could be the difference between keeping your bike and watching it go away on the back of a salvage truck. Choosing to fix the bike yourself doesn’t mean you have to do it all at once. Fixing the bike yourself gives you freedom: freedom to choose who does the work, freedom to shop around for parts, and freedom to have things done your way.
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MARCH 2010 Thunder Roads NEW YORK 31