Oklahoma has more than 12,000 miles of roads and is popular with motorcyclists for its well-connected highways and roads. It also has the longest stretch of Route 66 that is drivable, so is fun for all the romantics who want to cross the country! In this article I am going to discuss Oklahoma Motorcycle Insurance which is crucial for anyone who wants to ride a motorcycle in the state to have, and delve into what the states minimum requirements are, and what other factors you should be considering before buying a policy.
What are the minimum requirements for Oklahoma Motorcycle Insurance?
There are certain minimum requirements that center on liability cover and property cover that have to be in place before an Oklahoma resident can ride on the streets of Oklahoma City, Tulsa or Norman and they 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 often given the shorthand of 25/50/25 cover.
Do the Oklahoma Motorcycle Insurance minimums offer enough protection?
The first thing to bear in mind with these minimum amounts of cover is that they are not designed to be all-encompassing, comprehensive policies, but rather minimum safety nets so that people do at least have some level of cover. In terms of that they are fine, because they do at least ensure that everyone who rides a motorcycle in Oklahoma has some insurance.
This is critical because it is often other people who suffer in the event of an accident, and so sorting out some arrangements to offer them financial help if there is an accident is critical.
However, in terms of being a policy that you could recommend as being a one-stop-shop for Oklahoma Motorcycle Insurance you would have to say that it falls short. In practice 25/50/25 levels of basic cover are the most popular choice for state legislatures (though there are some, like Maine, that have much higher minimum rates); but they only cover one specific aspect of what can go wrong with regards to owning a motorcycle, and so to get proper coverage you will need to expand on the state minimums.
What are some other types of cover that you should look to add?
There are some other types of cover that you should be looking to add on to your basic policy, and some enhancements that would improve it.
The first of these would be to consider increasing the liability minimums because they are a little low for all but the most basic accidents. They do include medical cover, but when you consider that the average cost of a hospital stay in 2010 was $14,427 according to a leading Health Professional s Foundation, you start to get a feel for how quickly $25,000 per person of cover can get swallowed up.
The same applies to the maximum amount per accident of $50,000, because in practice if multiple people were involved in an accident (which would be normal for example if someone experienced an accident involving a car with multiple passengers) then that limit could very quickly get consumed by expenses.
You should consider giving yourself more breathing space when it comes to these limits by increasing their amount.
Similarly with property damage, $25,000 is actually quite low when you consider the costs of replacing many cars, and likewise with damage to multiple vehicles you can very quickly reach the limits of the basic cover, so consider increasing it.
Secondly, this doesn’t include fire, theft and vandalism cover. So for that added protection you will need to get Comprehensive Oklahoma Motorcycle Insurance added on.
You should certainly strongly consider doing this because motorcycle theft is much more common in the US then you might think, with a motorcycle being stolen around every seven and half minutes somewhere in the United States, and similarly there is nothing worse than returning to your bike to find that someone has scratched the paintwork or ruined some of your chrome pipework, so you should certainly consider adding that to your policy.
There are also several other types of cover that you should explore adding to your Oklahoma Motorcycle Insurance policy such as collision cover, uninsured motorist cover, and underinsured motorist cover.
(Remember that you can always check out state minimums and legal requirements for Oklahoma Motorcycle Insurance at the Oklahoma Insurance Departments website.)
Do some shopping around by comparing Oklahoma Motorcycle Insurance Quotes and see what deals are available and the kinds of cover that they can provide for you for your budget.