MiWay, now also a specialist direct insurer for bikes, offers this checklist to help ensure your bike is adequately insured.

Your bike is your baby – and you’ve spent a lot of time, effort and cold hard cash on it. But if your bike is involved in an accident or stolen, are you properly covered by your motorcyle insurance policy?

Failing to specify non-standard accessories or riding gear and not paying attention to the excess you’re liable for, could leave you holding a very big bill. Here’s what you need to look out for:

• Accessories
  As a general rule, most standard motorbike policies don’t cover custom accessories. If you’ve invested in a R20,000 exhaust and it’s not specified in your policy documents you’ll be paid out for a factory standard exhaust or receive such a replacement if it’s damaged in a accident.
• Riding gear
  Even a minor crash will probably mean having to replace your helmet, leathers and other riding gear. With a good average helmet alone costing between R5,000 and R9,000, you could end up in trouble if you haven’t insured it. Also make sure that your policy covers you for both an accident and theft, as some insurers exclude cover for theft on these items.
• Trailer
  Most people never think of this one, but you don’t have a trailer unless you need one. And if you need a trailer, you need to insure it together with your non-standard accessories for example spare wheel & tool box holder. Make sure your trailer is registered as this will be a requirement at most insurers. There is no market or retail values available for trailers, so insure it for a specified agreed amount.
• Life insurance
  Is there anyone in your life who’d suffer financially should you be fatally injured tomorrow? If the answer is yes, you need life insurance – and you need to tell your insurer that you own and ride a bike. Track days are seen as extreme sports and most life insurers exclude such activities.
• Warranty cover
  Is your bike out of warranty? Are you financially prepared for unexpected breakdowns? If your bike is out of warranty it’s worth considering extra cover for breakdowns.
• Credit shortfall cover
  If your bike is financed and there is a shortfall between the value of your bike and what you owe the bank, you might want to consider credit shortfall cover. This way you don’t end up paying for a bike after it’s been written-off or stolen! Remember most shortfall covers don’t cover arrear installments or excesses payable on a claim.

Now that you know all the bits you need to cover, here’s a few tips to help you make sure you get the insurance specific cover for your individual bike:

• What’s the excess?
  With insurance cover, as with everything else in life, you get what you pay for. Lots of people who chose their cover purely based on a low premium are shocked at having to pay a R40,000 or more excess when the time comes to claim. The fact is that if a premium looks to good to be true it often is. Make sure you understand what the excess will be in the event of a claim.
• Does the insurer have a clue about bikes?
  A motorcycle has very little in common with a car. Yet while most insurers have plenty of assessors skilled in deciding what repairs need to be made on a damaged car, very few offer experienced, specialist bike assessors such as you’d find at MiWay. That translates into long waiting periods before claims are approved, , unexpected disputes between the insurer, repair dealer and the client, and often frustration on the client’s part.
• Do you have all your paperwork in order?
  If you’re claiming for a lost or stolen helmet, your insurer might want to see an invoice to prove that you owned it in the first place. This goes for any non-standard accessory or specific item on your policy. It’s worth keeping all of this in one file so you have it handy when you need it.

Visit www.miway.co.za for more information on motorcycle insurance cover.