You're Paying Too Much For Motorcycle Insurance

Recently there's been a lot of conversation in Regina about SGI's new pilot project on Motorcycle insurance pricing. Telematics is a little black monitoring device placed on your motorcycle to record driving habits to offer a better way to assess insurance premiums in the future. Some provinces are going so far as to looking into assessing your car insurance based on a chip relaying information on your driving. SGI is looking for a better method of assessing the premiums of Morocycle insurance.

Regina isn't the only place instituting Telematics, Quebec and Ontario have introduced their own versions of usage based insuraces rates as well.

In the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Motorcycle accidents have been increasing since 1998. "Motorcyclists injured in crashes have increased by 110 percent from 1998 to 2007". A pretty startling statistic and possibly the reason why we're seeing increases across the board for motorcycle insurance premiums.

Insurance companies know now that competing on price is one of the last ways to compete in a heavily crowded market space. Actuaries are calculating that motorcyclists are costing insurance companies more money to insure so premiums are increasing.

1. It's closer to the true cost of insurance. The price of your insurance premiums are more accurate if they’re based on past results. If you're a good driver you deserve to pay less for insurance. It keeps the best interests of the individual user in mind. I don't know about you but I want to be paying the lowest absolute price for my insurance. If you have to monitor my driving, I'm in! Put a chip in my car if you'd like.

2. It helps the insurance companies weed out the bad eggs. The only people who wouldn't want to sign up for the black box on their bike (assumption) are precisely the ones who should have it. SGI is hearing from many drivers that don't like the idea whatsoever. Good thing for now it's only optional.

3. It creates the right incentive for drivers. If you know your future payments will be lowered if you don't get in accidents then it's pretty easy to see what happens over time. What if you now had a device that shared with the insurance broker how fast you accelerate and how hard you slam on the breaks. They could assess a lower premium based on driving tendencies.

As with any major change the government or crown corporation makes, they're bound to upset some people. No decision is going to make everyone happy, so from SGI's perspective the grumbling and upset motorcyclists were to be expected. You have to respect that they didn’t' make it completely mandatory. When I first found out about it I thought it was insane and didn't think it was legitimate at all. Then I found out how prevalent Telematics is in other parts of the world and even Canada.

It's a good thing. Any time we're moving closer towards charging customers the actual cost of goods and services everyone wins.