Insurance Mistake... | GTAMotorcycle.com

Insurance Mistake...

J

joelsephstalin

Member
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Hey all,

Just looking for some opinions on the matter. I was interested in buying a new bike, found one I liked, and as any reasonable person would do at my age (24), found out about insurance before spending any money. I called my current insurance broker, as well as a few new ones, just to get an estimate of what I would be looking at. My current insurer gave me the best price, so I told them I was going to go ahead and purchase the bike, and call them back to get my policy switched over to the new bike. I called the dealer, had them reserve the bike for me, got the VIN, called my broker and set up the switch. They e-mailed me new slips and said I would get a bill in the mail for the difference in my premium. So I bought the bike.

After one week, my broker phoned me back and said the company would not write the bike as it is considered a high performance bike. My policy will be cancelled and I'll have to get insured with a different company. So now I have gone ahead and purchased a bike based on the premium I was told (and agreed to and even now have slips for), only to find out insurance will actually cost me ~$1000 more per year, as I'll have to go with another company.

Obviously my broker made a mistake...should they be taking responsibility for their mistake? Do I have any other options in this situation?
 
It's already been covered time and time again. The insurance company has 60 days in which they can correct a quoting error.
 
I've seen that before, the 60 days thing... so what do you do then? buy a bike and wait 60 days? Can you ask them to confirm then reconfirm the quote? Or are you just outta luck as soon as they decide...
 
badjoke said:
I've seen that before, the 60 days thing... so what do you do then? buy a bike and wait 60 days? Can you ask them to confirm then reconfirm the quote? Or are you just outta luck as soon as they decide...
Click to expand...

You can ask, but regardless they have 60 days to discover and correct any rating errors.
 
Unfortunately, as stated by others, you're screwed. I had the same thing happen to me, some years back. The broker called me at home, while I was out picking up the new bike, to let me know that I wasn't insured. Seemed that he had known this for a week, before letting me know. I don't know how things would have gone, if I'd been hit on my way home.
 
The brokers all have binding authority on behalf of the insurance companies, meaning they can confirm coverages are in place before the insurance company even reviews the application. If the broker makes an obvious error attributed to negligence, AND there's a claim before the insurance company has processed the file, then the broker's own E/O (errors and omissions) insurance would kick in. If there is no claim and the insurance company wants to cancel or increase price, the most a broker can do is try and work out a deal where the insurance company waives the cancellation fees or extends coverages for a few more days/weeks. If its past the 60day period, usually they either stay on risk for the year or in the case of a big mistake, they can send a registered cancellation letter stopping coverages in 30days.

To minimize quoting errors, the client should always provide as many details as possible to the broker to do an accurate quote - and the broker should take their time with each quote and call the insurance company on any issue that seems unclear.
 
In my case the broker who quoted me was the acknowledged "Jevco motorcycle expert", at the time, and stated that he was involved in setting their policies. This was 1996 and if you check both Cycle Canada and Canadian Biker magazines, from that time, you'll find my story in their letters to the editor.
 
OP, this sucks, but Aleks described the process quite accurately. Stories like this emphasize the importance of choosing an agent/broker who knows motorcycles well (and you can find these agents/brokers in the sticky thread). Unfortunately, some agents/brokers can't tell a SS from a cruiser. It also might be a good idea to post your quote info here in the forum, and members can tell you whether or not your quote is reasonable.

IMO, your broker made a bad error, but unfortunately there's nothing you can do about it. Post up your details and we can try to recommend another company for you.
 
Aleks Hara said:
To minimize quoting errors, the client should always provide as many details as possible to the broker to do an accurate quote - and the broker should take their time with each quote and call the insurance company on any issue that seems unclear.
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I didn't even go through a broker, I went straight to my insurance company. They accepted my bike but then dropped the policy 2 months later. They suddenly realized my bike was in a different class (the rare two-wheel class of motorcycles) than what they would normally insure... And before you ask, I ride an SFV 650... way to go Allstate!

Back to your regularly scheduled thread!
 
EngineerJoe said:
I didn't even go through a broker, I went straight to my insurance company. They accepted my bike but then dropped the policy 2 months later. They suddenly realized my bike was in a different class (the rare two-wheel class of motorcycles) than what they would normally insure... And before you ask, I ride an SFV 650... way to go Allstate!

Back to your regularly scheduled thread!
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Ya..... I made a thread a while ago regarding allstate and their insurance as well as their lack of knowledge when it comes to motorcycles... I went in to get a quote for a CBR125 and of course the first thing they say is "Is that a sport bike or a cruiser?". I responded with sport bike and they say "oh, oh no, thats too much for us we dont deal with sport bikes".

1. The CBR125 is not even close of "too much of" anything.
2. They only deal cruisers from what they say. If you did not specifically tell them that it was a SPORTBIKE, they probably would've said "yes, we'll insure you"

To be honest, if you sent them a pic of your bike, they would probably think its a cruiser.
 
PLau said:
To be honest, if you sent them a pic of your bike, they would probably think its a cruiser.
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It's Allstate, they're idiots. I could send them a picture of my Devinci and they'd think it's one of those sportbikes with too much power!
 
Aleks Hara said:
The brokers all have binding authority on behalf of the insurance companies, meaning they can confirm coverages are in place before the insurance company even reviews the application. If the broker makes an obvious error attributed to negligence, AND there's a claim before the insurance company has processed the file, then the broker's own E/O (errors and omissions) insurance would kick in. If there is no claim and the insurance company wants to cancel or increase price, the most a broker can do is try and work out a deal where the insurance company waives the cancellation fees or extends coverages for a few more days/weeks. If its past the 60day period, usually they either stay on risk for the year or in the case of a big mistake, they can send a registered cancellation letter stopping coverages in 30days.

To minimize quoting errors, the client should always provide as many details as possible to the broker to do an accurate quote - and the broker should take their time with each quote and call the insurance company on any issue that seems unclear.
Click to expand...

I would think that providing the VIN of the bike and as much other info as possible (HP output, cc's, value, etc) like they asked for, they should be able to provide an accurate quote. If the broker is unsure, because they don't deal with motorcycles regularly, it feels to me as though they are not doing their job properly. Once it was discovered that the bike could not be insured, he was able to very quickly verify if other bikes could be insured with that company.

I just feel as though I did everything in my power to settle the insurance before spending any money, and they didn't do everything they could do. What more could I have done in this situation?

The bike is a 2009 Ducati Monster 696, and insurance is already taken care of, but it's now costing me more than $1000 over what I planned for insurance.
 
Rob MacLennan said:
In my case the broker who quoted me was the acknowledged "Jevco motorcycle expert", at the time, and stated that he was involved in setting their policies. This was 1996 and if you check both Cycle Canada and Canadian Biker magazines, from that time, you'll find my story in their letters to the editor.
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ah... Jevco in the mid nineties, I remember it well. I was a recipient of one of those infamous registered cancellation letters for my little NS400R. I phoned my broker and asked about my RC30. He said if they didn't send a letter then it was still covered. I asked how could that be, cancel my little 400cc sport bike but still insure my 750cc Superbike? Made no sense however, I did get to ride my RC for another season and a half. Then all hell broke lose. I received a letter threatening legal action for insurance fraud. Seems a review of the bike's VIN revealed it to be a spot bike and Jevco didn't insure sport bikes. I had to submit a photo copy of the ownership and two photos of the bike. One showing the whole motorcycle and the other a close-up of the VIN plate. Sure enough once they realized their error the insure on the RC was cancelled. But somehow it was all MY fault!

http://www.reach.net/~seven/rc&ns.JPG


My babies.
 
Stephen W. said:
ah... Jevco in the mid nineties, I remember it well. I was a recipient of one of those infamous registered cancellation letters for my little NS400R. I phoned my broker and asked about my RC30. He said if they didn't send a letter then it was still covered. I asked how could that be, cancel my little 400cc sport bike but still insure my 750cc Superbike? Made no sense however, I did get to ride my RC for another season and a half. Then all hell broke lose. I received a letter threatening legal action for insurance fraud. Seems a review of the bike's VIN revealed it to be a spot bike and Jevco didn't insure sport bikes. I had to submit a photo copy of the ownership and two photos of the bike. One showing the whole motorcycle and the other a close-up of the VIN plate. Sure enough once they realized their error the insure on the RC was cancelled. But somehow it was all MY fault!

http://www.reach.net/~seven/rc&ns.JPG


My babies.
Click to expand...

Can't, for the life of me, remember the name of the broker who screwed up at the time, but he wrote more motorcycle polices for Jevco than any other three brokers. I forcibly scrubbed that name from my memory. In '95 I was riding a new GPz1100, on a Facility policy; $1600.00/yr for basic. I switched to a Bandit 1200, in '96 (first year of the B12), largely on the promise that it would be considered a standard and then ended up with what I referred to as "expensive lawn furniture", in my letters to the editors.

Waiting a week to make a phone call, when I hadn't picked the bike up yet, was inexcusable.
 
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