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Motorbike claims

An interesting article in the insurance times about motorbike claims giving an insight in to insurance companies dealings with claims. Below are some extracts from the article - its long but worth the read.

It appears there is a sense of guilt - if you come off your bike going too fast round a bend, it is still covered on your insurance. So there is no need to claim it was diesel. The other excuses are gravel, in town, and farmers' muck in the country. Undoubtedly some of these accidents are genuine however not all.

But bikers do also get knocked off quite a lot too. Car drivers, or cage drivers, a word that claims handlers hear regularly hear is 'smidsy', which is an acronym of the phrase many bikers hear while picking themselves and their bike up again: "Sorry mate, I didn't see you".

But bikers are not a homogenous mass, much less so than car drivers. There are different types of bike, uses and riding styles, so claims come from all angles.

Riding in groups is a big source of of accidents, junctions cause accidents, changing lanes causes a lot of accidents. Sports bikes are more prone to high-impact accidents and there is a high correlation between personal injuries and the size of the bike. Basically, the larger the bikes tend to have bigger claims, more often. The older riders are not necessarily used to to more powerful bikes, but they have the money to buy them and, because of their age, their insurance is cheap. As such Motorbike insurer "Highway" have moved out of the high-value sports bike market.

Royal & SunAlliance has been on the sharp end of rising personal injury claims. Theft was a big issue but that has been replaced by third-party injury. A lot of people using bikes will take young girls on the back inadequately protected. The bikes will do 0-60mph in three and half seconds and they can't control that. Over 60% of RSA's large claims are now from pillions.

Motorbike claims handling

Insurers are more and more turning to in-sourcing for their claims handling to keep costs under control. Motorbike claims are less easy to control than car claims for a number of reasons.

Firstly, there is little or no Thatcham material available for costing repairs. The size of the market has not justified the spending required, but that means costs are open to exaggeration.

Add to that the cost of parts. Bike manufacturers have not been as keen to agree price discounts with insurers and motorcycle parts are notoriously expensive. A bike that retails for less than £8,000 new can easily cost more than £40,000 to build if each part is ordered separately.

Many of the motorcycle repairers do not have the specialist skills required to carry out bodywork repairs to an acceptable standard. That's not just because justifying the costs of a bodyshop is a tough sum to prove, but because bikes are notoriously difficult. There are so many variationsin colour, materials and decals that getting a 30cm bike panel to look like the original may take a lot longer than respraying a whole car.

Some repairers even sub-contract respraying to local car dealers, while most prefer to replace panels with new ones ordered individually from the manufacturers.

RSA have some ideas as to how to clamp down on costs. "Fowlers in Bristol is the largest parts supplier in the UK. Everyone uses the Fowlers list for prices but there are others, such as David Silver Spares whichis a bona fida Honda dealer yet charges about half the price for genuine Honda parts"

Average repair costs are somewhere around the £2,000 - £3,000 mark depending on whether you insure sports bikes or not and repairs generally take as long as three weeks to complete.

Another solution RSA has trialled is to negotiate with claimants and do deals. An example given is where Kawasaki ZX12 needed a new exhaust end. The original would have cost £760, but many owners prefer aftermarket alternatives, so the owner was offered a choice of two leading alternatives, Micron or Scorpion, which only cost £250 plus a discount on the excess so both insured and insurer save money.

This article is meant for the insurance industry but it does give a good insight into some of the problems that insurers face - so when your bike is going to take 3 weeks to repair and cost £3,000 when you just dropped your pride and joy, have some sympathy for the insurers. They are doing all they can to get the cost of bikes parts down - which will inturn help you next time you want to buy a new part for your bike. And remember to make sure your pillion is wearing appropriate protective clothing - trainers, jeans, jumper and a helmet are useless when you are going along the tarmac at 30mph!

For some good deals on bike insurance check out these motorbike insurance companies

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