The Best Cheap Motorcycle Insurance In Colorado

Insuring your motorcycle in Colorado is required, but it doesn't have to be expensive. We researched more than 200 insurance quotes across Colorado and found several great options for protecting your ride.

The cheapest motorcycle insurance companies in Colorado

The cheapest motorcycle insurance in Colorado comes from Nationwide, where a policy costs $508 per year. That's 18% cheaper than the state average.

Cheapest motorcycle insurance companies in Colorado

When we conducted our survey of quotes, the average cost of motorcycle insurance in Colorado was $619. However, the insurers we found offering coverage for motorcycles in this state means that your own quotes will probably vary significantly.

Best motorcycle insurance for most people: Progressive

Progressive motorcycle insurance offers the best option for most riders in Colorado. It has very competitive rates, plus an array of rider-specific discounts and protections that allow you to protect your ride.

At an average premium of $521 per year in Colorado, Progressive motorcycle insurance provides legally required liability coverage for bodily injury and property damage, plus comprehensive and collision.

Progressive also offers coverages that go beyond the basics, many of which often aren't available at other companies. A few examples:

Features and pricing aside, Progressive scores slightly better than average in terms of customer experience: The NAIC recorded a complaint index of 0.82 for Progressive, which puts it under the average score of 1.0. Finally, Progressive's massive scale and its AM Best rating of A+ make it a safe choice where financial stability is concerned.

Best for cheap coverage: Nationwide

The cheapest motorcycle insurance in Colorado comes from Nationwide, which quoted us an average yearly cost of $508 statewide. It also offers a fair number of discount opportunities for bundling your car insurance, staying accident-free and paying your annual premium upfront.

Besides being 18% cheaper than the average motorcycle insurance policy in Colorado, Nationwide carries a number of optional coverages. These options cost more but may be helpful if you want to protect something specific. For example, Nationwide's OEM endorsement covers parts straight from the manufacturer, not aftermarket alternatives, when your bike is being repaired.

Nationwide carries strong ratings for customer service and financial stability — two key characteristics for any insurance company. It received a complaint index of 0.61 from the NAIC, meaning it received only 61% as many complaints as a typical insurer of the same size. Meanwhile, Nationwide's AM Best Financial Strength Rating of A+ indicates it's well-prepared to pay your claim even after a natural disaster or economic recession.

Coverage from Nationwide isn't much different from the typical level of insurance you'd get at other companies, so if you're looking for robust coverage options, go with our main pick, Progressive.

Best for military families: USAA

Military members, veterans and some of their family members can get a great deal on a motorcycle insurance policy by buying through USAA. The company has some of the best customer service around, but is only available to a limited group of consumers.

USAA doesn't actually sell its own motorcycle insurance. Instead, it works through Progressive. USAA members get a 5% discount on Progressive policies, which can be added to an already strong set of discounts. Based on our sample rates from Progressive, this brings a USAA member's typical price to just $495 — the cheapest rate we found statewide.

We came away very impressed with Progressive overall, as it has affordable rates, lots of coverage options and solid customer service.

Comparing Colorado motorcycle insurers by customer service quality

Simply comparing quotes and rates isn’t always the best way to capture the full picture when shopping for motorcycle insurance. What happens while you have a policy is just as important as what you pay for that policy. This is especially true if you're accepting the greater risks that come with riding a motorcycle. To evaluate insurers on this level, we turned to several different metrics.

In our view, the most objective of these metrics was the NAIC complaint index. This number is equal to an insurer's share of consumer complaints divided by its share of the auto insurance market, measured in annual written premiums. Essentially, any insurer with a complaint index under 1.0 is receiving fewer complaints than would be expected for a business of its size.

We also considered the AM Best financial strength rating of each insurer as a barometer of how well they can handle the challenge of paying claims when their financial situations become difficult. This can happen, for example, when a natural disaster triggers a massive number of claims all at once or there's a change in macroeconomics. It's relatively rare for insurers to default on their claims, but we used AM Best as a guide to avoid recommending any insurer likely to have problems.

Colorado motorcycle insurance: Costs by city

Motorcycle insurance premiums can change from place to place. This happens because different locations have different levels of risk for riders, whether because of increased traffic or the state of local roads. To highlight the possible changes in cost, we looked at the average cost of motorcycle insurance in each of Colorado's cities.

Our numbers showed that just like in other states, motorcycle insurance in Colorado is most expensive for the largest cities. Nine out of the 10 cities with the highest premiums were located in the Denver metropolitan area. In these cities, the average cost of insuring a motorcycle was 10% to 19% higher than in the state as a whole.

How much motorcycle insurance is legally required in Colorado?

Under Colorado law, riding a motorcycle requires the same amount of liability insurance as driving a car:

Sometimes, insurers will show you these coverages in a slightly different format. For example, the bodily injury liability limits are often written together as "$25,000/$50,000," which means $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident. These mandatory insurance requirements are meant to make sure that anyone who is responsible for causing a road accident has the ability to pay compensation to the other parties.

The legal minimum for motorcycle insurance is substantially lower than the coverages we selected in order to estimate average premiums in Colorado. We believe that liability insurance alone is usually not enough to financially protect the typical rider. The quotes we've used in comparing insurers included the extra cost of collision and comprehensive coverage for your own bike, regardless of who's at fault.

How do you get a Colorado motorcycle license?

Besides meeting the minimum insurance requirements, riding legally in Colorado requires adding a motorcycle endorsement to a valid driver's license. There are two ways to do this, both of which require you to visit a driver's license office in person.

If you're under 18, you must purchase and hold a motorcycle instruction permit for at least 12 months. After that, you may add the motorcycle endorsement to your driver's license. The need for a regular license to start this process means that you must be at least 16 to get your motorcycle permit in Colorado.

What's the cheapest option?

MOST courses are run by private instructors who are certified by the state department of transportation (DOT), and they generally cost between $180 and $250. While this is quite a bit more expensive than simply studying for the tests by yourself, that may not be an option if you don't have a good way to practice the skills on your own. MOST courses will provide you with motorcycles and gear as part of the course fee. The professional instruction you get in a for-pay course may help you make faster progress in a safer environment.

Other motorcycle laws in Colorado: Gear, passengers and rules of the road

Like a few other states, Colorado doesn't require that you wear a helmet if you're at least 18 years old. (Minors must wear a DOT-approved helmet.) However, every rider is legally required to wear eye protection of some kind: Visors, goggles and eyeglasses all count toward this rule, while windshields do not.

If you take passengers on your bike, they must be seated either behind you on the bike or beside you in a sidecar. Passengers behind you must use passenger footrests.

In Colorado, riders are subject to all of the traffic laws that apply to cars and trucks. The Colorado DOT's website states that you cannot share a lane with another vehicle unless it's with one other motorcycle. This means that lane splitting is not allowed in Colorado.

Methodology

To analyze the cost of Colorado motorcycle insurance, we collected more than 200 quotes using a hypothetical rider profile. The quotes were based on a 45-year-old man insuring a 2021 Harley-Davidson FLHX Street Glide. The driver had 20 years' experience riding motorcycles, was married and owned a home. Each of these data points can have an effect on the rate that insurers are willing to offer an individual applying for motorcycle insurance.

However, the most important variable in determining your premium are the coverage limits you select. As stated above, we chose limits that were much higher than Colorado's legal insurance requirements:

Although we don't recommend doing so, it's likely that you can find far lower motorcycle insurance premiums than we did by reducing your desired coverage to the legal minimums, which are $25,000 per person/$50,000 per accident bodily injury liability and $15,000 per accident property liability.