Why bother with insurance?

[b1unt3d]

alright mr got it made, what if you loose your job, should you then lose the right to drive?

newsflash, driving is a privilege, not a right.

[Brett]

newsflash, driving is a privilege, not a right.

Sorry RM...I agree with this.

[Drunken Monkey]

Always insured my cars because of the amount of time spent in them and, with more recent cars, their value. Never insured any one of the 5 bikes I had, saved a small fortune through some care and a lot of luck. It could have turned out bad, but it didn't, that's the game insurance is.

Some people wouldn't step out the door without it, but don't let them tell you what to do. Balance the risks and costs, look at your record, how many kms or hours you ride, what you ride and then make a choice. Not insuring isn't morally wrong, despite what some people are implying in this thread, but do be aware not having insurance may end up costing you a lot more than you bargained for.

[Drunken Monkey]

anyone that takes to the roads without insurance to cover damage to other people and their property should be shot. they do not deserve the right to be on any road. a motor vehicle whatever the power is a dangerous thing in the wrong set of circumstances. would you buy a 300K house and not insure it against loss due to fire/ etc? so we must take out insuance to cover other peoples loss if an accident or other incident causes missfortune to happen to another party on the roads. bring on compulsory 3rd party insurance. if someone crashed into me or my wife n kids without insurance, and caused our vehicles, or them harm, i would go to the ends of the earth to reap my revenge upon them! cant afford insurance?.tough shit.dont drive / ride

No, opinionated, nosey pricks like you should be shot.

And how the fuck is having accident insurance going to make your kids better off in an accident? You're a fucking retard.

[imdying]

Get in the loop... by the time you're ready for a bigger bike, you'll already have a 2 years no claims bonus, and thus your big bike will be far more economical to run.

[rapid van cleef]

so not having insurance helps how exactly?.oh my god.what a waste of time....

ah well ignorance is bliss

i shall leave you plebs that choice to use the roads without insurance to wallow in your insignificance

[The Pastor]

newsflash, driving is a privilege, not a right.

Sorry RM...I agree with this.

NEWSFLASH! Maybe you guys should visit your dictionary and look up the words you claim to know so much about.

A privilege, is by definition a right you receive with out earning or deserving it, it is beyond the reach of most people. It can be taken away for no reason at all.

For example, it is a privilege that kiwibiker exists for you to post your inane and ill thought out posts, Spankme Could take it down for no reason at all and it would no longer exist.

Your drivers license (and firearms license) is not a privilege, its a right. Once you have become qualified it is your right to be able to drive or ride a car or bike, as per your qualification (and also own firearms). No one can take take that right away from you. You can lose your right due to bad behavior and disobedience of the law.

For those reasons driving on the road is a right, and not a privilege.

You may now apologize to Kiwibiker on account of your ignorance and contempt for the motoring public at large.

Rm.

[DarkLord]

Get in the loop... by the time you're ready for a bigger bike, you'll already have a 2 years no claims bonus, and thus your big bike will be far more economical to run.

Unless you've written one off over that time... such as myself.

[Thani-B]

I didnt have a choice with mine. Mum wouldnt let me ride unless it was insured, and AMI didnt give me the choice of 3rd party or full, it was compulsory full. And yes I am talking about my GN250. Having it insured for 2 years has got me a pretty good quote for when I can afford my 650.

[Brett]

alright mr got it made, what if you loose your job, should you then lose the right to drive?

Everybody and their damn "rights"...


I will answer your with this....

If you can't afford to own a vehicle and keep it legal then you do NOT have the right to drive or ride.

[Grasshopperus]

Wow, there's plenty of opinions flying around this thread.

A couple of things;

Cars do cost a hell of a lot more than bikes. What is the newest R1 retailing for? $24000. Entry level peugeot's and VW Golfs cost far more than that. And you can't even get a porsche made this millennium for anywhere near $24K.

Making 3rd party insurance mandatory and prosecuting those who disobey the law is just going to make our already overburdened legal system even more bogged down. It will probably just create a bunch more criminals as someone else said earlier.

There have been some good comments about getting into the system to get a no-claims-bonus by the time I get a big bike but that's a cyclical argument; get insurance to get more insurance.

There are some people who are taking other people's refusal to get insurance as a personal insult. They are saying if you can't afford insurance (or just don't want to get it) then don't ride. Well that's ironic, the whole reason you get insurance in the first place is because you can't afford the risk. You can't afford to replace your bike, you can't afford to fix other peoples vehicles. Those are the reasons you get insurance. Well guess what, you can't afford to ride if you need insurance. Insurance companies don't get rich by paying out, what if you do drop your $20k bike and you don't get covered? Maybe you should've just got a $10k bike and kept that other $10k in case you really needed it.

Now, I'm not saying I can afford to crash into NZ's only Ferrari Enzo, and I'm not having a go at anyone, I think insurance in general has it's place; I have to insure my house while I'm paying off my mortgage, I wouldn't lend money to someone to buy an asset that could irrevocably disappear in a ball of fire. What I am saying is that it should be a choice. Personal responsibility is not exactly the flavor of the month but I shouldn't be forced to pay a private company for the right to use public property.

Also, how's this for an idea. If you do want to start meddling, limit personal liability on the roads to $10,000 per vehicle. The roads are built for the express purpose of public transportation. They're not built for enjoyment, they're not built so that people can showcase how rich they are and they're certainly not there to let people "express themselves". $10k will buy any type of road-going vehicle. A 2nd hand corolla with airbags can be had, plenty of bikes etc. If you want to blow $150,000 on a new BMW and you can't afford to replace it, then get insurance! But, you'll probably have to pay something like 10% of it's insurable value each year in premiums because now the insurance companies can only screw the other party for $10k.

Now that's a rant.

[paddy]

Just to play Devil’s advocate: Insurance companies’ actuaries determine risk and calculate a premium accordingly with a margin for profit. Therefore, mathematically at least, that margin represents your potential saving if you choose not to have insurance. That said, I wouldn’t ride down the road for a bag of chips without being fully comp.

Never risk that which you can’t afford to lose.

No, because that margin is calculated based on the risk across _ALL_ clients not just one. That's fundamentally how they make a profit. To expand that a little, risk is a measure of likelihood multiplied by consequence. Mathematically the likelihood probably stays constant (ignoring the varying client type and motorcycle type across an insurer's business); however, the consequence of paying out $1000 on a single claim is going to be considerably higher to an individual than to a insurer.

That said, everyone should have at least third party. I'm going to be pretty p**ssed if you ride into me without it! :-)

[paddy]

Now, I'm not saying I can afford to crash into NZ's only Ferrari Enzo,...

I can't afford to crash into Grandad's Datsun Cherry. Therefore I mitigate that risk by paying for 3rd party insurance. It's only around $16 each month and has the side effect of covering theft. On the other hand, my bike is only worth $4-5k so I haven't bothered with fully comprehensive insurance. I have another vehicle and for ME the premium doesn't justify the risk.

Having said all of that I have used the doesn't-affect-your-no-claims-bonus-even-on-a-third-party-plan window glass insurance twice on our vehicles. I haven't quite figured out why that one doesn't get exploited to the point of insurer's withdrawing the service, but I digress! :-)

[Pixie]

I really dislike this type of argument. Using this logic you should be paying for volcano insurance, terrorism insurance, leaky home insurance, bad hair day insurance ad infinitum.

Wouldn't it be difficult to cause that much damage to a car while riding a smallish bike?
Also, if I caused that much damage I'd probably be dead

I do see your side of the argument though which is "at least get 3rd party dude!".

You drop your little bike
It slides into the path of a Bugatti Veyron
You end up working to pay off $2,000,000 debt for the rest of your life.
You considered bankruptcy,but when it was explained that you may never get approved for a loan again,you thought better of it.

[Grasshopperus]

You drop your little bike
It slides into the path of a Bugatti Veyron
You end up working to pay off $2,000,000 debt for the rest of your life.

I see that NAC will cover up to $20million for 3rd part so I guess that'd be sweet.

But, do you think any insurance company is going to be on your side if they have to cough up that sort of money? They'll find any possible avenue to dodge out. They might hire some expert to find a problem with your bike that made the WOF invalid (and that makes your insurance invalid too).

Yeah, driving without insurance is a risk. But isn't riding more risky than driving a car too? ACC stats say you're 10 times more likely to be seriously injured if you have an accident on a bike. Shouldn't you drive your car everywhere then? Or do you accept that risk?

I know insurance has worked out good for some people but using fear to get people to blindly purchase insurance is a form of terrorism

Just to clarify, I would never leave someone high and dry if I caused damage to their vehicle, I'm just saying maybe it's OK to accept the risk, just like you all do when you ride your bikes.