Motorcycle Insurance Misconceptions Part 4 – My Car Insurance Will Cover Me If I am Hurt On My Motorcycle!

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Jim Reed

Motorcycle Insurance Misconceptions Part 4 – My Car Insurance Will Cover Me If I am Hurt On My Motorcycle!

As previously mentioned, there are a lot of misconceptions about motorcycle insurance. I couldn’t begin to list of all of them, but I will discuss and dispel the most common and most dangerous one I hear on a regular basis in the motorcycle collision cases I handle.

MISCONCEPTION #1

“No worries, my car insurance will cover me if I am hurt on my motorcycle!”

The single most common misconception I hear is people thinking they don’t need to purchase a lot of motorcycle coverage, because their car insurance will cover them in the event of a collision. DON’T MAKE THIS CRITICAL MISTAKE! You are NOT covered by your car insurance for an accident on your motorcycle! In fact, every motor vehicle policy contains an exclusion specifically denying coverage for injuries sustained while operating a motorcycle. It doesn’t matter whether your car insurance is through the same company, whether the bills get mailed to you in the same envelope, or whether the same agent sold you the policy. Your car insurance WILL NOT cover you for an accident with your motorcycle.

This post is the fourth in an eight-part series covered in my book, “Would You Ride Your Motorcycle Naked?” It is available FREE to New York and Pennsylvania bikers, and to those whose loved ones are bikers. Click the link above to get your free copy now, before it is too late!

Thanks for reading,

Adam M. Gee, Esq.
______________________________
NY and PA Motorcycle Attorney
The Ziff Law Firm, LLP
303 William Street
Elmira, NY 14901
Phone: (607)733-8866
Fax: (607)732-6062
Email: agee@zifflaw.com
www.zifflaw.com

Motorcycle Insurance Fallacy No. 3 – Your Insurance Agent Will Make Sure You Have The Right Coverage

Posted on September 23, 2009 by Jim Reed

FALLACY #3 – Your Insurance Agent Will Make Sure You Have The Right Coverage

The third reason people think they have the right kind and right amount of insurance is because their insurance company tells them they do. When a biker needs insurance for his or her motorcycle, they have two choices. They can walk into a local insurance agent’s office or, as more and more people do everyday, they can get their insurance on line or over the phone. When you walk into a local insurance agent’s office, what do you see above the door? Probably a big sign advertising the name of the insurance company they sell policies for. So who do you think that insurance agent works for, how do they get paid? They get paid by the insurance company for selling you a policy of insurance. Let me put it more bluntly: your insurance agent works for his insurance company, not for you! And those people you talk to on the 1-800 numbers? They work for the insurance company, too.

In NY, Insurance agents aren’t like other professionals. Your doctor, your lawyer, your accountant and your architect all owe you a duty of care. They have an obligation to look out for your best interests. If they breach that duty by failing to exercise a reasonable degree of care, you have the right to sue them for it. But insurance agents are different. They don’t owe you a duty because they don’t work for you. They are in essence representatives of the insurance companies. If they fail to sell you the right kind and right amount of insurance you cannot sue them for it.

Just like every other profession, there are good, bad and indifferent insurance agents. The difficult part is telling the good ones from the rest. Since this is my book, I am going to take the liberty of generalizing about insurance agents. Because insurance agents don’t work for you, they will try to push you toward the product they sell that has the highest profit margin for them. At the same time, they will steer you away from insurance products that carry the greatest risk to their employer. They do this in the interest of maximizing their own fees and keeping their employer, the insurance company, happy. Is that the kind of insurance you want? The kind that makes your insurance agent the most money and minimizes the risk for the insurance company? If not, please read on.

This post is the third in an eight-part series covered in my book, “Would You Ride Your Motorcycle Naked?” It is available FREE to New York or Pennsylvania bikers, and to those whose loved ones are bikers. Click the link above to get your free copy now, before it is too late!

Thanks for reading,

Motorcycle Insurance Fallacy No. 2 – Insurance Is Confusing

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Jim Reed

FALLACY #2 – Motorcycle Insurance is Confusing – Get Your FREE Motorcycle Insurance Review!

A second reason people sometimes believe they have the right insurance is because insurance is so darn confusing! I deal with insurance and insurance companies every day. I actually read those big fat insurance contracts your insurance company sends you every six months. I make a living fighting with insurance companies and making them live up to their promises, so I HAVE to read those policies. You don’t have to, and probably never have. I don’t know anyone other than contract lawyers who enjoy reading 75 page contracts, so I don’t blame you a bit. Insurance is confusing, but it isn’t rocket science. Your insurance company could write those contracts in a way everyone could easily understand if they wanted to, but the truth is they don’t WANT you to understand those contracts. They don’t want you to understand their obligations to you. They don’t want you to question what they are doing. Insurance companies only want one thing from you; a check every month.

The truth is that someone who knows what they are looking for can tell you whether your coverage is appropriate in about 15 seconds. The first page of the thick renewal packet the insurance company sends you every year is what is called a declaration page, which gives you a thumbnail view of your insurance limits. For a limited time, I am offering a FREE INSURANCE REVIEW! Send me a copy of your motorcycle insurance declaration page by fax or e-mail, and I will explain to you what your policy covers, and what it doesn’t, and also recommend coverage amounts you should consider to make sure you are protected in the event of a motorcycle collision.

This post is the second in a eight-part series on topics covered in my book, “Would You Ride Your Motorcycle Naked?” It is available FREE to New York and Pennsylvania bikers, and to those whose loved ones are bikers. Click the link above to get your free copy now, before it is too late!

Thanks for reading,

Motorcycle Insurance Fallacy No. 1 – Bikers Already Think They HAVE the Right Insurance

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Jim Reed

FALLACY #1 Bikers Think They Already HAVE The Right Insurance

The problem isn’t that people don’t care enough to buy the right kind of insurance. And the problem certainly isn’t that people can’t afford the right kind of insurance, as will be discussed below. The problem is that people THINK they DO have the right kind of insurance when in fact they do NOT!

People often think they have great insurance (when in reality it isn’t nearly enough) because there are a lot of misconceptions about motorcycle insurance. I have heard these same misconceptions over and over again from people of varying ages and varying income levels. I don’t know how these misconceptions became so well rooted in the motorcycle community, but the most common ones will be exposed in this series.

This post is the first in an eight-part series on topics covered in my book, “Would You Ride Your Motorcycle Naked?” It is available FREE to New York and Pennsylvania bikers, and to those whose loved ones are bikers. Click the link above to get your free copy now, before it is too late!

Thank for reading,

Adam
______________________________
Adam M. Gee, Esq.
NY and PA Motorcycle Attorney
The Ziff Law Firm, LLP
303 William Street
Elmira, NY 14901
Phone: (607)733-8866
Fax: (607)732-6062
Email: agee@zifflaw.com
www.zifflaw.com

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: 8-Part Blog Series to Reveal Misconceptions about Motorcycle Insurance

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Jim Reed

In my practice, I’ve represented many victims of motorcycle accidents. Time and time again, I have heard my clients voice the same lamentable, mistaken beliefs about their insurance coverage.

You expect your insurance to cover you. That’s why you have it, right? Unfortunately, I have been in the position of explaining to people that motorcycle insurance is different. Some damages that would be covered if the accident happened while you were driving a car are NOT covered if you are on a motorcycle.

Too many times I have had to tell people that their recovery was limited because of the type and amount of insurance they chose to buy.

I decided to write a book about motorcycle insurance, “Would You Ride Your Motorcycle Naked?” to explain precisely how to obtain the proper coverage and dispel some of the false ideas about motorcycle insurance. My book is available free to New York or Pennsylvania accident victims, or you may order a copy for $12.95.

This post introduces an eight-part series based on my book. I’m going to explain the three fallacies and five most common misconceptions about motorcycle insurance – and hopefully my knowledge will help some motorcyclists before it’s too late.

By the time someone is sitting in my office, it is too late for the secrets I will reveal in my book to do them any good. I have wished many times that I could go back in time and help people choose the right coverage before the accident took place.

I finally got tired of wishing and feeling bad for people, and decided to get off my duff and do something about it. I wrote my book to put this information in people’s hands before they ever have a crash. Now I’m blogging about some of the most important features in my book, to spread this important information in another form.

Check back soon for more posts in this series.

Thanks for reading,

Adam
_____________________________
Adam M. Gee, Esq.
NY and PA Motorcycle Attorney Attorney
The Ziff Law Firm, LLP
303 William Street
Elmira, NY 14901
Phone: (607)733-8866
Fax: (607)732-6062
Email: agee@zifflaw.com
www.zifflaw.com

Alcohol Plus Motorcycles: A Deadly Combination.

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Adam Gee

Many thanks to Attorney Jim Carroll of Athen, PA, a good friend and confidante of the Ziff Law Firm, for bringing to everyone’s attention a sad, sad situation which occurred in Nicholson Township, Wyoming County, Pennsylvania on Monday, August 24, 2009. Jim’s blog post can be found here.

As reported by the Towanda Daily Review, this single motorcycle crash resulted in the death of Randall Maxwell and Susan Homet Monday evening when the 2006 Yamaha Road Star motorcycle operated by Maxwell failed to negotiate a right hand turn while traveling southbound on State Route 107 in Nicholson. The motorcycle left the roadway and contacted a guard rail. Both Maxwell and Homet, who was a passenger on the motorcycle, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Sadly, the story does not end there. Pennsylvania State Police report that both Maxwell and Homet were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash. Additionally, neither Maxwell nor Homet were wearing a helmet.

As I have written many times, motorcycles and alcohol NEVER mix. The margin for error on a motorcycle is so small that anything that blunts an operator’s senses should be avoided at all costs. I am not preaching against alcohol, but if you are going to ride, drink soda. If you are going to drink, call a cab. As we see too often, mixing alcohol and motorcycles ends in tragedies like this one.

As the story relates, neither Maxwell nor Homet was wearing a helmet at the time of the collision. In Pennsylvania, state law does not currently require bikers to wear helmets as New York does. It is unknown whether helmets would have saved their lives, but it is undoubtedly safer to ride with a helmet than without. I have handled many, many motorcycle cases, and it is a rare case where there is no damage to the helmet. The vast majority of the time, the helmet is scratched and scraped from contact with the road, or outright crushed by contact with another vehicle or other hard object. This is damage which would have been borne by the biker’s head if not protected by a helmet. Your brain is the one thing no doctor can put back together. It should be protected accordingly.

The increase in bikes on the road, spurred by increased gas prices as well as the general popularity of motorcycles, has resulted in a significant increase in the number of motorcycle accident cases I see. Unfortunately, the biking community holds a lot of misconceptions about motorcycles, and the rules that pertain to them. To combat this misinformation, I wrote a book entitled “Would You Ride Your Motorcycle Naked” which dispels many of the myths I hear about motorcycle, and informs bikers about the kinds and amounts of insurance bikers need to make sure they and their families are properly protected in the event of a crash. You can request a free copy of my book by clicking here.

Don’t be caught riding your motorcycle naked! Get my free book to find out about the most important insurance coverage you can have, and why your insurance agent won’t sell it to you!

Thanks for reading!
_______________________________
Adam M. Gee, Esq.
NY and PA Motorcycle Attorney
The Ziff Law Firm, LLP
303 William Street
Elmira, NY 14901
Phone: (607)733-8866
Fax: (607)732-6062
Email: agee@zifflaw.com
www.zifflaw.com