A Guide to Motorcycle Insurance in North Dakota (ND)
North Dakota borders on Canada and in terms of its size to population has one of the biggest amount of land and one of the smallest populations. There are only 672,591 residents of North Dakota as of the 2010 Census, and about a third of that population live in Fargo. But for motorcyclists the vast areas of land that are open to ride in make it a dream state if wide open roads and empty highways are what you like.
In this article I am going to look at North Dakota Motorcycle Insurance and exactly what you need to know in the (aptly nicknamed) ‘Roughrider State’ to make sure that your journeys on the highways of North Dakota stay nice and smooth!
What are the minimum requirements for North Dakota Motorcycle Insurance?
There are certain legal minimum requirements that you will have to meet if you want to ride your motorcycle in North Dakota.
These mainly revolve around liability insurance and property damage cover, and the requirements are as follows:
$25,000 – Bodily injury liability for one person
$50,000 – Bodily injury liability for one accident
$25,000 – Property damage liability cover
These are normally referred to as 25/50/25 cover.
Do the North Dakota Motorcycle Insurance Minimums offer enough protection?
The basic amounts of cover that these provide is really only intended to be a safety net, and does not provide that big of a safety net either! The average hospital stay in 2010 according to the IHFP cost $14,427, and on the upper end of the scale was approaching $50,000 for people who needed more extensive treatments, scans and operations. So it is easy to see how if you involved in anything other than a very minor accident, that you could end up waking up in hospital with a big bill to pay!
The whole point of getting motorcycle insurance should be that you no longer have to give any thought to the consequences of being in an accident, because your insurance will take care of it. And yet at these lower levels of cover that is clearly not the case.
So one of the first things that you should do when getting North Dakota Motorcycle Insurance Quotes from different companies is to raise the level of liability cover to an amount that you feel could actually handle you being in an accident, and perhaps having to cover the medical expenses for several peoples hospital stay.
The second thing would be to increase the amount of property damage liability cover, because whilst $25,000 sounds like a handy amount of cash, the reality is that accidents smash up roads, and other property in addition to just cars and other motor vehicles, and all of these are very expensive.
You may get ‘lucky’ and have an accident where the costs of replacing damaged property is less than $25,000; but do you really want to spin the roulette wheel and gamble like that?
The irony is that you will probably find that increasing your basic levels of cover by considerable amounts will probably cost far less than you think, and that you will be able to have far higher levels of cover for a fraction of the cost proportionately then the first levels of cover.
But honestly, even if you do have to pay a little more it is probably worth it for the peace of mind it will give you.
Other types of cover that you should consider getting are full coverage, comprehensive North Dakota Motorcycle Insurance which would also cover you for such areas as theft, vandalism and storm damage amongst other things.
Motorcycles get stolen in the United States far more than you might think, and in fact every seven and a half seconds a motorcycle is stolen by a thief in the United States. If you didn’t take out comprehensive ND motorcycle insurance then at this stage it’s probably game over, because only about a fifth of motorcycles that are stolen are ever recovered.
But at least if you had taken out comprehensive Dakota motorcycle insurance you would be covered, and would be able to buy a replacement motorcycle.
(Remember, you can find out the regulations and law surrounding the North Dakota Motorcycle Insurance state minimums at the North Dakota Insurance Departments website.)
Additionally, you should look into getting Uninsured Driver cover, because about 15% of all the drivers in the United States don’t have car insurance. So if you become embroiled in an accident with one of these drivers, then you really could have significant financial problems, unless you had the forethought to add Uninsured Driver cover to your policy.
In conclusion, take a look at what is on offer and get a wide variety of North Dakota Motorcycle Insurance Quotes to explore your options more fully about what is on offer.
The irony is that you will probably find that increasing your basic levels of cover by considerable amounts will probably cost far less than you think, and that you will be able to have far higher levels of cover for a fraction of the cost proportionately then the first levels of cover.
But honestly, even if you do have to pay a little more it is probably worth it for the peace of mind it will give you.
