Motorcycle insurance: what a "comprehensive" policy really covers

"I'm fully comp, I'm covered." That's the line you hear at the roadside, and it's also the line that comes three weeks before the nasty surprise, when the settlement offer lands. Not because the insurer is cheating, but because "comprehensive" describes nothing standardised: it's a commercial label sitting on a stack of covers, and two policies carrying that label can produce very different outcomes on the same claim.

This article compares no insurer and quotes no price: policies and settlement practice vary enormously from one company to the next. It explains the mechanisms that decide how much you are paid, so you go and check them where they are actually written — in your policy schedule and your policy booklet. Those two documents are what count, not the sales page.

What a policy actually stacks up

Every motorcycle policy starts from a legal floor: third party liability, which pays for the harm you cause to other people. It never repairs your machine and never treats your injuries. Everything else is a stack of options, and it's the thickness of that stack that gets called "third party only", "third party, fire and theft" or "comprehensive".

The right-hand column is the one that changes everything. A cover listed in the table is not a cover without limits: each one has its own ceiling, its own excess and its own conditions of application.

The excess, and its three forms

That's the slice you carry yourself, and it comes in several shapes worth telling apart.

• Fixed excess — an amount in pounds held back from the settlement. On a UK policy it usually comes in two parts that add together: a compulsory excess set by the insurer, and a voluntary excess you chose to cut the premium. It bites hard on small claims and becomes marginal on a heavy one.
• Percentage excess — a share of the loss, bounded by a minimum and a maximum. On a valuable machine it's that ceiling you need to read, not the percentage.
• Increased excess — it applies in identified cases: a young or newly qualified rider, a second rider added to the policy. It is often well above the base figure.

There are also different excesses per cover: the same bike can carry a modest excess on accidental damage and a much heavier one on theft. That's a pricing trade-off — but you want to know which one you signed.

Market value: the real subject

This is the most misunderstood mechanism, and the one that disappoints most often. If the bike is stolen or written off, you're generally settled neither on what you paid nor on what the machine would cost new, but on market value, assessed by the insurer's engineer: the price an equivalent bike — same model, same year, comparable mileage and condition — changes hands for on the used market at the time of the claim.

• If you bought above the market, the gap is gone: the price you paid doesn't enter the calculation.
• If the model drops fast, the settlement falls as fast as the values do. On a recent bike bought on finance, the outstanding balance can exceed the settlement, and that shortfall is yours unless you hold a separate GAP policy.
• The assessment is arguable. It rests on comparables. If the engineer has used adverts that don't match the condition or the exact version of your bike, produce your own evidence: service invoices, history, dated comparable adverts.

Some policies offer new-for-old or purchase-price replacement, but always for a limited window after purchase, usually expressed in months, and usually restricted to a machine bought new from a dealer. After that you're back on market value. Classics and heavily modified bikes take the other route: an agreed value policy, where the figure is fixed up front on photographs and a valuation, then reviewed periodically. Check which of the two your policy runs on, and the end date of any new-for-old clause. To know where your machine really sits before you argue an assessment, the method for valuing a used bike uses the same criteria the engineers do, and the free estimate at /cote-moto gives you a ballpark in two minutes.

The exclusions that come up most often

An exclusion is a situation in which the cover doesn't respond, even though it appears on the policy. The following families turn up in most policies on the market, with variable wording — which is exactly why you have to read yours.

• Undeclared use: circuit riding, track days, competition and the training that goes with it. A track day is not covered by a standard road policy, however well organised — that needs separate track-day cover.
• Non-compliant rider: no valid licence, a disqualification, or the wrong category for the machine (CBT, A1, A2, A). This is the exclusion with the heaviest consequences.
• Drink and drugs, with different effects by cover: third party liability generally still answers to the injured party, but the covers that protect you and your bike fall away.
• Obvious neglect: bald tyres, brakes that don't work. The burden of proof sits with the insurer, but a documented service record keeps you out of the argument. Once a bike is three years old it needs an annual MOT, and riding on an expired one simply hands the insurer another line in that conversation.
• Undeclared modifications: a machine whose power, exhaust or chassis has been changed without the policy reflecting it is no longer the machine that was insured.
• Theft without forced entry or without the required lock: many policies make theft cover conditional on an approved lock — Sold Secure ratings are the usual reference — and sometimes on where the bike is kept overnight. Keep the receipt and the certificate.

None of these clauses is hidden: they're in the policy booklet, in the exclusions chapter, and they read in a quarter of an hour.

Kit and accessories: two different logics

Rider's kit is generally covered by a capped allowance, with a deduction per year of age and sometimes an excess of its own. A good helmet and a one-piece suit go past that cap quickly. Two habits: keep the receipts, and check whether the policy replaces a helmet after a drop with no visible damage — a common case, handled differently by each company.

Accessories follow another logic: they're only covered if they were declared, with proof, and up to a limit. Luggage, navigation, intercom, exhaust, crash protection — add up what you've bolted on, compare it to the limit, declare the difference. And the contents of a stolen top box usually fall under a different policy altogether, not the bike one.

Personal accident cover, the most underrated

This is the cover that pays for your own injuries when you're at fault or there's no third party at all. Two parameters decide whether it's any use. The limit first, which has to bear some relation to what a serious accident costs in lost earnings and adaptations. Then the trigger threshold, expressed as a degree of permanent disability: below that threshold, nothing is paid for permanent injury. A low threshold is markedly more protective, and that line lives in the policy schedule, not in the sales copy.

It's the cover worth paying more for, well before shaving pounds off your accidental damage excess.

Named riders and premium levers

Read the riding clause. Some policies name a single rider, others allow a second named rider or riding by anyone with the right entitlement, often with an increased excess and sometimes conditions on age or years held. Lending the bike outside that scope risks a refused claim, not just a loaded premium. And note that a "riding other bikes" extension, where it exists at all, is usually third party only.

On the premium itself, the real levers are known even if the weighting varies: the value and category of the machine, where and how it's kept, your claims history, the declared use, the annual mileage, the excess you choose and the security fitted. In the UK, no-claims discount isn't set by a single national scale — each insurer runs its own ladder, you earn a year for every claim-free year and get stepped back after an at-fault claim, and most insurers will sell you protection for it. Ask for your proof of no claims in writing when you switch. Ways to save without losing protection are set out in the piece on cheaper motorcycle insurance, and the effect of tracking devices in the one on marking and GPS trackers.

The half hour that changes everything

Get out your policy schedule and your policy booklet. Note six things: the amount and type of every excess, how a theft or write-off is settled and the end date of any new-for-old clause, the kit limit and its wear deduction, the accessories limit against what you've actually declared, the trigger threshold on personal accident cover, and the riding clause.

Then hold those six lines against your real situation: the current market value of your bike, what your kit is worth, what you've added to the machine, and who rides it. Wherever the gap is wide, you have a precise question to put to your insurer — and a precise question gets a written answer, which beats general advice. For the market value, the free estimate at /cote-moto gives you the numbered starting point for that conversation.