I’m not sure if this is the right place for this question but…
At the present time, there are really no companies that offer bicycle insurance policies comparable to car insurance policies. Someone who didn’t own a car (and thus didn’t have auto insurance) who was the cause of an accident while on a bike could end up paying significantly for damage and injuries. A Google search for “bicycle insurance” reveals that I’m not the only one who has thought about this. It also brings up several companies that sort of offer insurance for cyclists, but nothing that looks reputable and certainly nothing that resembles a general comprehensive liability auto insurance policy.
I called my insurance company to talk to them about it, and was basically blown off by two different call center employees, and a call center manager who all insisted that nobody would be interested in that (despite the fact that I was interested).
So, does anyone have any recommendations for contacting someone at a major insurance company who might actually take this seriously?
Renter’s or homeowner’s insurance would cover the loss of or damage to the bike, and a general personal liability policy would cover any claims against the rider for damages they caused. Actually, many cyclists don’t even need to combine two policies. My homeowner’s policy also has a general liability rider, which is a common combination. Since these are readily available, I don’t see the reason for a specialty policy which would probably cost more.
Well, couldn’t the same thing be said about auto insurance? Why is there auto insurance if any damage could just be covered under homeowner’s insurance? Couldn’t we all just be required to carry personal liability instead of specific auto insurance, since really anyone could be the cause of an accident at any time (even on foot)?
That probably sounds like I’m trying to be difficult, but I’m not. If my bicycle was my sole mode of transportation, and I’m riding it on the road along with cars, shouldn’t there be a single policy that covers me just like if I was driving a car? It feels overly burdensome to say, “Well, this will cover you if this happens, and that will cover you if that happens, and this might cover you if this other thing happens” which is the message I seem to be getting everywhere I look.
And besides, insurance is a profitable business. Most people will never get out of their policy what they put into it. Surely there’s some executive or R&D guy who will see this as a chance to make a profit.
Because car accidents are very common causes of expensive claims, so they excluded them from those policies and invented a new form of insurance for them. The same isn’t true of bike accidents.
You’re less likely to kill someone or cause serious injury to someone you hit while riding your bicycle.
With regards to the value of the bike itself… most people carry insurance to protect the loan they’re carrying on a car. What’s the average price of a new car? Maybe a little north of $20,000. Not even Lance Armstrong rides a bike that costs that much. The business model’s going to be tough covering replacement cost (or damage) for an item that costs $300.
As others have said, if you have a homeowners policy you’re likely already covered. I suspect a renter’s policy would as well. If you don;t have either (?!), then most insurance companies will sell youa personal liability policy or an umbrella policy. I think that would accomplish what the OP is suggesting.
As GreasyJack says, auto claims are excluded from general insurance policies, specifically so they can be a separate product.
Homeowner’s policies generally do provide personal liability coverage, to a certain extent
Except it’s not. Buy a homeowner’s or renter’s policy, make sure it covers the cost of the bike and provides general personal liability coverage, and there you have it. It covers not merely your bike and any accidents you have while riding, but even covers your entire home and its contents. How is that not a single policy?
Not according to every health insurance company that goes before my state’s insurance rate board, it’s not. IOW, blanket statements without qualification like this aren’t really helpful. You could accurately amend that statement to say: “Insurance is a profitable business when you make sure you take in more in policy premiums than you pay in claims and overhead.” Unfortunately, that’s also a tautology. It could just as accurately be reduced to: “Businesses make a profit when they take in more revenue than they spend.” It doesn’t really add anything, or take into account the complexities of running a profitable business. For example:
By the same token, because most people won’t anticipate making a claim on a specialty bicycle policy, they won’t ever see a need to buy one. An insurance product needs not only to pay less in claims than it makes in premiums, it needs to cover the expense of selling and supporting it. To do that, you have to have a product with enough demand. However much you want such a policy, your one lonely voice in the insurance wilderness is not enough to pay for the sales staff, underwriters, actuaries, support staff, executives, etc., etc., etc., that policy will require.
If you can, however, convince an insurance company that you are one of thousands (tens of thousands would be even better) that want such an insurance product and are willing to pay reasonable premiums for it, then they will be more than happy to create such a thing.
That said, even the League of American Bicyclists evidently can’t convince anyone that’s necessary or desired, since their member benefits don’t include it. This is the organization that, when they were still the League of American Wheelmen, had over 100,000 members and were influential enough to force the first investment of federal dollars into US roads. If they aren’t interesting insurance companies in specialty cycling insurance, you probably won’t on your own.
As has already been noted: unlike an automobile, the insurance industry seems to have decided that there’s no need for a separate policy. The bike itself is covered under your homeowner’s or renter’s policy. Injuries or damage to other property would be covered under a general liability policy, or a personal umbrella policy. Talk to the agent who provides your home / renter’s policy.
ETA: My suspicion is that absolute premiums would be so low for a separate cyclist policy (few claims, low dollar value), and so few people would seek to get one (it’d probably only be attractive to avid cyclists), that the big insurance carriers don’t feel it’d be cost-effective to offer one.
Ok, so let’s say that I’ve had a long day at work and don’t notice the stop sign at the intersection on my way home. A car is forced to swerve to avoid hitting me and instead hits a telephone pole which then falls and hits a house. The house is damaged, the car is totaled, and the driver is seriously injured. My bike and I are untouched and unharmed. Neither the owner of the house nor the driver have any kind of insurance.
If I’m understanding correctly, my homeowner’s insurance policy (and attached personal liability policy) would cover the damage to the house, the replacement of the car, and the driver’s medical bills?
I’m not sure why everyone is so convinced that homeowners would cover anything in this instance unless their homeowners policies are dramatically different from mine. I had to add a special rider to my homeowners insurance to cover assets in a home office and clients who might get injured while here. The default policy would not have covered that. Neither policy would protect anyone who was outside of my home.
That said, I’m not sure bicycle insurance is a good solution.
Consider an umbrella policy instead. These are designed to catch personal liabilities that aren’t covered by more specific policies. So an umbrella policy would cover you whether you caused the accident on a bike, on foot, on skateboard, or whatever.
Or… instead of being so insistent on a bicycle policy, just sit down a real insurance agent in person. Explain your needs and ask what insurance products are recommended to solve the problem.
I’m not sure why that surprises you. As far as I am aware, ordinarily homeowner’s policies exclude business usage. Businesses and residences are different things, after all. The fact that the former can take place inside the latter does not mean that the latter’s insurance covers the former. Usually it doesn’t.
That would be a reasonable assumption. You could scour your policy for any applicable exclusions, but in my experience you wouldn’t find them. Comes down to, dod you perform a negligent act, and did that act directly result in injury or loss to someone else. In your scenario, there is an unbroken chain of events between your running the stop sign and the house getting smashed.
It doesn’t surprise me that the policy needed to be modified to include business activity.
What surprises me is that people think homeowners insurance will protect you when riding a bike around town. Maybe theirs does, but I’m pretty sure my coverage would end at the driveway.
It is not clear to me that running a stop sign (or similar action) on a bicylcle would create a liability for the rider. Does anyone know the legal situation for this? If it does create a liability, wouldn’t you also potentially need pedestrian insurance, or roller blader insurance in case you cut in front of a car and caused on accident?
Of course the injured parties would be free to sue you, but don’t think it is a given that they would win.
I suspect you have a fairly off base idea about tortious liability. Maybe read Wiki’s web page on “tort”. The key thing:
This is a principle of near universal application. It is absolutely a no brainer that causing injury by running a stop sign will in any ordinary circumstance give rise to liability.
I’m not sure if this is the case in the US, but in Australia the problem is most home/contents policies will cover your bike while stationary (e.g. at your home or place of work) but not while you’re riding it - when you are most likely to get damaged/cause damage.
I’ve had to take out a special content policy which covers my bike for accidents while riding as well as public liability insurance which was arranged through Bicycle Victoria (state cycling advocacy group).
If you don’t want full content insurance, they offer a separate policy covering your own injury as well as injury to someone else and damage caused to someone else’s property while riding. But I gather this is only offered as they have the size to negotiate these sorts of covers on behalf of riders in the state.
One is that there is too much variation in bike use to make a policy that is useful to people. The vast majority of car drivers use their cars to commute, run errands, and go on long trips now and then. There are very few people who use their cars more than an average of dour hours a day or less than an average of two hours a week. Most people drive on a predictable ratio of highway to surface, and almost all on public roads with rather rigid standards. There are extremes of use, but ost fall in to a range of average.
Bikes, however, vary from the hardcore commuter who spends three hours a day in rush hour city traffic to the guy who takes it out on the trail a couple times each summer. The extremes of use are really far apart, and there are not a lot of middle ground average bike riders. And there is n good way to tell which is which- so you’d have to tailor to the hardcore biker, making it silly for casual bikers to buy in and help spred the risk.
The other factor is the potential for fraud. If you stage an accident with car insurance, you are going to deal with higher rates and it probably won’t be worth it in the long run. If you stage one with bike insurance, you can just quit biking or opt out of insurance.
Of course, you can insure around these risks. But quite quickly you’ll end up with something nobody wants to buy and is not worth the time it would take to write.
Another issue, along side the it’s already included in home/renters insurance, is that there is a point where it becomes ridiculous and expensive to have so many policies, maintain a whole new business line of a insurance product. This cost of maintaining a separate line of product (or service if you prefer) will be passed on to the buyer, who is already being nickle’ed and dime’ed seeming everywhere they turn.
It is also can be a nightmare for consumers as insurance companies play pass the buck between them, which also consumes the insurance companies resources, increasing costs.