TD Insurance Hates ABS | GTAMotorcycle.com

TD Insurance Hates ABS

SuperStealthySquid

SuperStealthySquid

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For background, I was getting a few quotes in anticipation of buying a new motorcycle next year. I am currently with TD/MM as they give a good price for my DRZ. At first I used the online tool -yes it is not perfect but it gives a general idea of what to expect- and I noticed something very weird, all motorcycles with ABS seemed to have crazy jacked insurance rates. Here is some examples of what i was quoted at...

2014 Triumph street triple - $1850
2014 Ducati Mosnter 696 WITHOUT ABS - $1850
2014 Ducati Mosnter 696 WITH ABS - $4800
2013 Kawasaki ER6N (No ABS) - $1770
2014 Kawasaki ER6N (With ABS) - $4800
2015 Yamaha FZ07 (No ABS) - $4900
2014 Aprilia Shiver 750 (No ABS) - $1900

For reference I am 22, clean record, driving since 17, and currently paying $900 for a DRZ400.
Clearly the ABS is what is jacking the prices, I figured it was a dumb computer glitch so I called up their quotes service to figure it out. Long storyshort after a half hour chat and him talking to his manager, apparently TD Insurance considers a motorcycle with ABS to be a HIGH PERFORMANCE MACHINE!! ABS is supposed to be a safety feature so wtf! All the motorcycles I looked at are naked/standard, so none of them should be considered high performance. I still need to call around other companies, I just thought i'd share what i learned from my current insurer.

Anyways I am very curious to hear some input on this, Is the ABS hate isolated to TD insurance and their subsidiaries? and from any industry insiders what could possibly be the logic behind these rates!
 
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You sure about the FZ-07? The Yamaha website doesn't mention anything about ABS.
 
Huh, looks like your right, I coulda sworn the dealer mentioned ABS, Fix'd it
makes me wonder even more why its in the super-sport group
 
Just wondering, out of all these quotes, have you gotten one from them comparing the two models?

Its good that you acknowledge that online quotes give you a general idea of what you'd be paying, but when you notice something abnormal, calling would be your best bet.
 
That doesn't make sense I'd try calling again. There is no reason why ABS would cause rates to jump like that...the only thing it might do (stupidly) is raise them a few dollars due to the higher MSRP of ABS models, when in reality it should be considered a 'safety' feature resulting in reduced rates.

Also for reference, I was paying $1200/year for year 1 on a brand new CBR250RA (ABS), $700/year year 2, and $560/year year 3. Male, 32, living in Toronto, and all quotes were for 1 million with full coverage, including depreciation protection (get full MSRP back if the bike is stolen or written off).

For the CBR650F I ditched TD MM for another company as they classified it as a supersport, where others did not.
 
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^ your right it isnt anything to do with ABS in particular. TD just has a very fine line between "regular" bikes and "performance/SS" bikes. It just so happens that some middleweight bikes are so close to that line that ABS is enough to push them over to the ridiculous side of things. This also just so happens to be the class of bikes I was looking at for my next purchase, so I guess I overreached a bit, lol :D . Although in fairness my blood always heats up when the issue of bike insurance pops up!
/thread
 
For reference, the best quotes that I got on my CBR650F were All State and Dalton Timmis:

TD MM: $1900/year
All State: $1200/year
Dalton Timmis: $1150/year

In the end I wet with Dalton Timmis given how close the quotes were, and All State wanted me to move everything (so bike, car, and condo) to them, which meant cancellation fees.
 
I'm not an insurance person but my guess is this is the fault of actuarial tables. Insurance companies make poorly informed decisions based on them because they separate models that are identical, as if riding a 2013 bike vs a 2014 bike of the same model with no changes will somehow result in different crashes. I had the same shock with TD/MM when I first purchased my 696. I quoted for a 2009 but it worked out that I bought a 2010, and the insurance quote quadrupled. They just had record of more people claiming on the 2010, and treated them as different bikes.

My guess is that more people buy the ABS model, so they have more records of claims

This is good and bad, bad because you can't get the exact bike you want (e.g., the one with ABS), but good because if they homogenized the models into a single pool, rates might go up significantly for those models that seem to be excepted from the bad rate, meaning you could buy that one and insure it for cheaper.

Anyways, that's my relatively uninformed guess at it, maybe someone in the insurance industry could clarify
 
Even though we have home and two car insurance with TDMM, they still gave me a rate thats $1000 higher than the average rate I got from other places.
 
ABS and rate changes for worse?? that's some non-sense right there. but really, what makes sense in the whole Ontario vehicle insurance system??
 
I just got a quote from TD MM today for a ninja 300 ABS and compared it to the non-abs version and there was no difference.

Currently I'm paying $1560ish with SF for 1M liability, and fire and theft ($500 ded)

I got a quote of $1174 for full coverage with TD MM for the ninja 300 abs 2M liability, full coverage ($500 ded). Needless to say, I'm switching over upon renewal :p
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