Insurance: If I renew now, can my rates still be affected?

Factual Questions
1

So I took a spill on my motorcycle about a month ago and went through my insurance to get her fixed. Anyway, my policy has just come up for renewal at the same rate it was before – it seems they haven’t had time to work out how my crash should (if at all) affect my rates.

So here’s my question: if I pay the first installment on my renewal, am I then locked in for the whole year at that rate? Can they raise the price beyond what I’ve already been quoted? If not, doesn’t that, in effect, mean this ding on my record will only affect my rates for two years as opposed to the potential three (since that’s how long it’d be on my record for)?

2

My experience with car insurance is that they can and do raise the rates whenever they want to. There is no “lock-in” period.

3

They can also cancel you and send you a check for the balance.

4

But they may not, there’s a lot of competition these days, even for motorcycles.

5

It depends on the company, but from my experience your rate will only change on renewal.

6

If you can afford to pay the full year amount up-front, rather than making monthly payments, you could also consider that. They’d have a tough job to get out of that, I feel - seems like it would be a valid contract, unless their small print mentions a caveat regarding accidents affecting rates after renewal. Or something.