What Does Full-Coverage Motorcycle Insurance Cover?

Full-coverage motorcycle insurance covers repairs or replacement if your bike is damaged or stolen, as well as damage you may cause in an accident. Typically, it includes comprehensive and collision insurance, in addition to any state-mandated liability coverage.

A full-coverage policy is the best way to protect your bike. However, these policies are usually much more expensive than those that include only the state-required liability coverages.

How much is full-coverage motorcycle insurance?

While your rates will depend on a variety of factors — including your driving record, age and motorcycle make and model — full-coverage motorcycle insurance is typically much more costly than a basic policy with just liability insurance. Based on the quotes we gathered, buying a full-coverage motorcycle insurance policy that includes the minimum required liability insurance plus collision and comprehensive insurance is an average of 10 times more expensive than purchasing the state minimum of liability insurance and PIP (when required).

What's included in a full-coverage motorcycle insurance policy?

The defining feature of a full-coverage motorcycle policy is that it includes collision and comprehensive insurance, though these policies also include the coverages required by your state.

State-mandated coverages for riders often include:

Collision and comprehensive coverage

Comprehensive and collision coverage are first-party coverages that pay to repair or replace your motorcycle in the event of a covered loss. Collision coverage pays for damage that results from an accident with another vehicle or object — including incidents like hit-and-runs — while comprehensive coverage covers theft as well as "act of God" incidents. This includes damage to your bike from flooding, fires, hail and falling objects.

Comprehensive coverage can be particularly helpful for seasonal motorcycle riders, as it protects your bike while it is stored. So when it's not riding season — which can be a significant amount of time for some — or you don't get your bike out very often, you still are protected for possible damage.

Motorcycle accessories — which include fairings, saddlebags, windshields and luggage racks — may not be covered by full-coverage motorcycle insurance. Some insurers automatically include a certain amount of accessory coverage — such as Progressive, which includes $3,000 in accessory coverage. Others have it available as an optional add-on coverage when you buy collision and comprehensive coverage, and some may not offer it at all.

Bodily injury and property damage liability

Bodily injury and property damage liability insurance cover damage you may cause other motorists and their property in an accident. For example, if you crash your motorcycle into someone's car and cause $10,000 in damage to their vehicle and injure the other driver, resulting in medical expenses, that would be covered by liability insurance. These coverages are required for riders in many states. However, even if it isn't required, we recommend that you buy a policy that includes liability coverage to protect your assets if you are at fault in an accident.

Uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage

Uninsured or underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage covers losses you may experience in an accident caused by a driver who doesn't have sufficient liability insurance or isn't insured at all. There are two kinds of UM/UIM coverage — bodily injury and property damage — which function the same way as the liability insurance that we discussed in the previous section.

UM/UIM bodily injury coverage will pay for medical bills if you are injured by a motorist that doesn't have insurance or has insufficient bodily injury liability limits to cover your bills. Similarly, UM/UIM property damage insurance covers damage to your bike caused by a motorist without sufficient property damage liability limits.

Personal injury protection

Personal injury protection (PIP) is insurance that pays for your own medical expenses and lost wages due to an injury that occurs in an accident, regardless of who is at fault. PIP is required in one-third of states, but it is available in nearly half. Because PIP is a no-fault coverage, you can expect to get your medical bills paid more quickly than with liability insurance, where an insurer will only pay out when one party is determined to be at fault.

Frequently asked questions

Should you get full-coverage motorcycle insurance?

Whether you should opt for full-coverage insurance over the required liability coverage will depend on two factors: the value of your bike and if your motorcycle is your main mode of transportation.

If your motorcycle is worth more than $5,000 — or is a classic or custom ride — you should strongly consider getting full motorcycle coverage. For bikes of this value, the increased premiums for comprehensive and collision coverage are justified when you consider the potential loss.

For bikes worth less than $5,000, the increase in insurance costs will likely surpass what you can expect to get out of the coverage. Therefore, the cheapest option may be to buy a policy without collision or comprehensive coverage, save the money you would have otherwise spent, and simply pay out of pocket for any necessary repairs.

You should also consider a full-coverage policy if you rely on your motorcycle for everyday transportation. If you get into an accident and have collision coverage, you won't have to wait for another driver's insurance to pay out for repairs. That means that your bike will be back on the road sooner than if you only had liability coverage. Similarly, with comprehensive coverage, you won't be without a vehicle if your bike is stolen and you don't have the cash on hand to replace it.

Methodology

We collected thousands of quotes from six major insurance companies across the country to determine the average annual cost of motorcycle insurance nationally.

To calculate the difference between the annual cost of state-minimum and full-coverage motorcycle insurance, we compared quotes for a single 35-year-old male with a clean driving record who has been riding a motorcycle for 10 years. We analyzed quotes for a 2021 Yamaha V Star 250, Kawasaki Ninja 400 ABS and BMW R 1250 RS. We used the following limits for full-coverage policy quotes: