Make sure your insurance policy is accurate...

SoCalScooter · Post by **SoCalScooter** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:18 am

(TL;DR version - check your insurance policy for accuracy, carry on)

So, when I purchased my Buddy Italia 150, State Farm could not match up the VIN in to a make/model in their database. The Agent's office called repeatedly, and I emailed them pics of the VIN on the bike, sent copies of the DMV registration card and even brought the bike by their office. After several weeks, I received my insurance cards and policy summary.

Much like anything from State Farm that isn't a bill, I put it in a shoebox and have ignored it.

Same issue when I bought my Blackjack. Took a while to get everything matched up in their database, but soon I had my cards and I was out and riding.

Well, now that I've made a loss claim and the claims adjuster called me back today to make a ridiculously low offer to reimburse me for my loss. I almost spit out my coffee before I asked what the heck they based the offer on. It seems that the policy was issued on a Buddy 125, as opposed to the 150 Blackjack, so the claims reimbursement research was based on the average between a used 125 and a new 125.

Needless to say I educated the adjuster on the differences between the 125 and the 150, including the differences in the MSRP. They should be calling back in another day or two with a new reimbursement figure.

I called my agent's office and asked what that was all about. The lady that set up the policy determined there was almost no difference in the premium between a 125 and a 150, and since she was having trouble matching the 150 in their database, she gave up after a while and ran the policy as a 125.

So... careful if you're using State Farm and own a 150, you might not get what you think you're paying for.

SoCalScooter · Post by **SoCalScooter** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:20 am

Don't get me wrong... I'm fairly happy with State Farm - I have homeowners, auto and motorcycle insurance with them. I just got quite a shock when they put out such a low offer figure, I almost laughed at the guy.

jijifer · Post by **jijifer** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:52 am

most insurance isn't "value to replace" but "value of the bike". As you mentioned yours didn't have the pipe on it so that's $300 right there.

they will look and see Scooterworks is selling Blackjacks CHEAP right now and go down from there.

But no, don't expect replacement value for your scooter. I mean, ask for what ever you want but just don't expect enough to buy a new one. if you bought new and these were still under warranty, then that's an arguing point right there - buying used would mean you'd give up the warranty.

now, your scoot was damaged when you rearended a car, right? or when you laid it down trying not to rearend the car? then a lady ran over you?

There should be 2 separate claims. You'll be at fault for your bike as it's rearending is always the rearenders fault. BUT the lady that ran over you should be paying medical bills.

that's what I think would be the way it worked out. WHen I got rearended the rearender's insurance covered everything.

SoCalScooter · Post by **SoCalScooter** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 7:34 am

jijifer wrote:most insurance isn't "value to replace" but "value of the bike". As you mentioned yours didn't have the pipe on it so that's $300 right there.

they will look and see Scooterworks is selling Blackjacks CHEAP right now and go down from there.

But no, don't expect replacement value for your scooter. I mean, ask for what ever you want but just don't expect enough to buy a new one. if you bought new and these were still under warranty, then that's an arguing point right there - buying used would mean you'd give up the warranty.

now, your scoot was damaged when you rearended a car, right? or when you laid it down trying not to rearend the car? then a lady ran over you?

There should be 2 separate claims. You'll be at fault for your bike as it's rearending is always the rearenders fault. BUT the lady that ran over you should be paying medical bills.

that's what I think would be the way it worked out. WHen I got rearended the rearender's insurance covered everything.

When the lady ran up on me, she propelled the bike into the next lane where it hit a car. I was lucky enough to not be propelled due to being caught on the undercarriage/bumper of her car.

I don't know what her insurance situation is (I know she's covered), but State Farm wants to cover my bike as a loss claim under my policy then seek reimbursement from her insurance.

The bike was totaled because she hit me. I was riding along on my way to work and probably would have suffered torn pants and a scratched crash bar had she not been on her phone/texting...

Based on me riding along, having a mostly nice morning, then going to the hospital and loosing my transportation to work, I'm pretty sure I should get full replacement value for the bike.

Am I wrong here? Something I'm missing? Also, as a loss claim on my policy, the $500 deductible comes out of the payment (less what I paid out of pocket for towing to the shop).

As for BJ's going cheap? Please send me a link, because, as far as I can tell there is only one being sold new in the state of California, which is in Thousand Oaks, for full MSRP + Dealer Fees + Shipping, which would come to $4,525 (give or take $50 or so based on the salesman's estimate for shipping). I haven't searched Craigslist north of LA or in Arizona, but there aren't any BJ's or 150 Internationals that I've seen for sale in SoCal. As for the ones at Scooterworks, they aren't advertising prices, and I doubt the claims adjuster is a fan of theirs on Facebook or would even be aware of their affiliation with Genuine, so I don't think he'd be aware of their repo sale. Plus, shipping the 2,220-ish miles from Chicago (just drove it in May) would most likely be overly expensive.

MWPMWP · Post by **MWPMWP** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 3:45 pm

The fun world of insurance!

Just in response to the initial post. When I went to register my Buddy 125 in the state of Georgia, the motor vehicle department couldn't find the scooter anywhere in their database.

It turns out that all the papers from the dealership list MOTI as the make of the scooter.......short for MOTIVE POWER INDUSTRY CO., LTD

I finally figured out what the lady was doing wrong and told her about Genuine Scooter and she was then able to find it.

So anyway, maybe the insurance company has mixed up information in their database.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:16 pm

My Allstate insurance agent had the hardest time finding Stella in his database. I distinctly remember him finally saying "Aha, there it is," finally (and unconvincingly). My papers now say "off-road vehicle".

Of course I have liability only. Still, would you think this is something I should raise a fuss about?

With the 66 VBB, I have Hagerty insurance which covers the bike (and cheaply), but it's garage-queen insurance. I'm not supposed to ride it much.

SoCalScooter · Post by **SoCalScooter** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:25 pm

Tom wrote:My Allstate insurance agent had the hardest time finding Stella in his database. I distinctly remember him finally saying "Aha, there it is," finally (and unconvincingly). My papers now say "off-road vehicle".

Of course I have liability only. Still, would you think this is something I should raise a fuss about?

With the 66 VBB, I have Hagerty insurance which covers the bike (and cheaply), but it's garage-queen insurance. I'm not supposed to ride it much.

I might call to inquire, but as long as your liability coverage reflects your on-road use of the vehicle and is at the level you've purchased, I would be okay with their classification... now if it's specifically for "Off-Road" only then you might have a problem.

Uncle Groucho · Post by **Uncle Groucho** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:28 pm

SF sent me a bland little form letter saying "your vehicle hasn't been found in the state tagged/titled database and you may be an uninsured motorist" a few weeks ago.

Sent them back a stern note that the state wouldn't title my scooter as it was a 50cc and included a print out of the tax commissioner's page explicitly stating that and that the insurance was for my own protection. Also included a request that if they won't honor any future claims because it doesn't appear in the state database to let me know now so I can dump them for another provider.

Considering they wouldn't give me a discount for completing a MSF course, it may be time to give them the heave-ho....

jonlink · Post by **jonlink** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:56 am

State Farm is terrible. They low-balled me when I got hit by a guy who rode through a red light while playing with his car radio. They offered me just over half of what the car was worth at the time. I'll never do business with them again.

Skootz Kabootz · Post by **Skootz Kabootz** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:31 am

jonlink wrote:State Farm is terrible. They low-balled me when I got hit by a guy who rode through a red light while playing with his car radio. They offered me just over half of what the car was worth at the time. I'll never do business with them again.

Exactly what happened to me with AAA when my car was totaled. Except AAA offered me 15% of the value. 6 months of fighting and expert appraisers and I got exactly what I said it was worth in the first place. I wouldn't even use AAA for maps now. POS company.

[Edit to add: That AAA totaled the car is a questionable choice at best. Really minimal damage. But that is a story for another time.]

PeteH · Post by **PeteH** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:57 am

My Progressive policy has the right details, plus I've kept every bit pf paper documenting the purchase and service expenses. Just came up for renewal, and my premium dropped from $140 to $122 (full coverage).

viney266 · Post by **viney266** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 2:21 am

That is a good "heads up"

Just an opinion. I quit using state farm years ago. when they were the first insurance company to make a "blacklist" for motorcycles. Just sayin'

Dooglas · Post by **Dooglas** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 5:09 pm

jonlink wrote:State Farm is terrible.

Seems like it is possible to collect good stories and horror stories about any insurance company. I have had State Farm Insurance on my cars and motorcycles/scooters for many years. Good rates, good service, and fair settlements when damage occurred. Now, I have had terrible experiences when the other driver in an accident is insured by Allstate. My experience says to avoid them at all cost. Consumer Reports also consistently ranks Allstate and Farmer's Insurance at the bottom of the list.

Edwub · Post by **Edwub** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:32 pm

Dooglas wrote: Consumer Reports also consistently ranks Allstate and Farmer's Insurance at the bottom of the list.

Tangential to the thread, but when I was looking up new quotes for my Blur, one of these companies (It was either 'State Farm' 'Allstate' or 'Farmers Insurance') informed me that they don't cover motorcyclists unless we've had our license for three years.

I was only 2.5 years with license (1.25 years with permit before that), so it was a no go. I remember thinking I'd wait a few more months and call them back out of curiosity just to see what the quote would be.

Now I can't remember which of the three companies it was...such similar names.

Lotrat · Post by **Lotrat** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 9:51 pm

So yesterday I got a letter from the CA DMV stating that they were going to suspend my license because I didn't have insurance on a motorcycle I bought last month. I spent an hour in the AAA office and have an insurance card from my visit last month in my wallet so I knew something was up. I gave AAA a call to see what the deal was. They said they have record of me being there, but my paperwork wasn't entered and that I needed to do it all over again. They tried to get me to pay for the past month saying, "You would have been covered if you were in a accident." I told them that I bet I would have had to fight for it and wasn't going to pay for their mistake. I told them that we should start from today since I'm setting it up "today"... A few more threats of going elsewhere with my 6 vehicles and house and they saw it my way. Insurance companies are the devil.

jijifer · Post by **jijifer** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:46 pm

Lotrat wrote:So yesterday I got a letter from the CA DMV stating that they were going to suspend my license because I didn't have insurance on a motorcycle I bought last month. I spent an hour in the AAA office and have an insurance card from my visit last month in my wallet so I knew something was up. I gave AAA a call to see what the deal was. They said they have record of me being there, but my paperwork wasn't entered and that I needed to do it all over again. They tried to get me to pay for the past month saying, "You would have been covered if you were in a accident." I told them that I bet I would have had to fight for it and wasn't going to pay for their mistake. I told them that we should start from today since I'm setting it up "today"... A few more threats of going elsewhere with my 6 vehicles and house and they saw it my way. Insurance companies are the devil.

so they are saying you were never insured? the DMV did the same thing to me. Metlife doesn't have a standard scooter/motorcycle policy so mine is what they have termed "manual". Like when I log on to my account, I can see my renters and my car insurance and make changes to those but my scooter insurance isn't represented because it's "manual" so I have to keep all the paper copies they send. So they also don't update the DMV electronically so every 6mos so every time I come up in Audit, it likely shows my insurance has expired since they haven't seen the many paper updates since the last audit. No biggie, it's happened just the one time.

agrogod · Post by **agrogod** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 9:44 am

Insurance in general is just plain 'ol highway robbery these days. If you don't fall within specific guidelines, and a claim has to be made, you practically have to jump through hoops to get the claim to go through.
Unfortunately because of state and federal mandates you have to have the "minimum" to be road worthy, the minimum being whatever state you reside in deems necessary.
Long gone the days when insurance was just that, now its designed to pay off all those cute ads you see everywhere. And if you think there are many different insurance companies you would be wrong, its just one giant entity called "All your fault Insurance"

sickpuppy · Post by **sickpuppy** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 10:53 am

So which insurance companies do you guys like ?

teabow1 · Post by **teabow1** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 2:32 pm

viney266 wrote:That is a good "heads up"

Just an opinion. I quit using state farm years ago. when they were the first insurance company to make a "blacklist" for motorcycles. Just sayin'

Can you explain? What do you mean "blacklist for motorcycles? As in, they decided some motorcycles were more dangerous than others?

teabow1 · Post by **teabow1** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 2:39 pm

Lotrat wrote:So yesterday I got a letter from the CA DMV stating that they were going to suspend my license because I didn't have insurance on a motorcycle I bought last month. I spent an hour in the AAA office and have an insurance card from my visit last month in my wallet so I knew something was up. I gave AAA a call to see what the deal was. They said they have record of me being there, but my paperwork wasn't entered and that I needed to do it all over again. They tried to get me to pay for the past month saying, "You would have been covered if you were in a accident." I told them that I bet I would have had to fight for it and wasn't going to pay for their mistake. I told them that we should start from today since I'm setting it up "today"... A few more threats of going elsewhere with my 6 vehicles and house and they saw it my way. Insurance companies are the devil.

Wow. Sorry to hear this story!

I'm searching for scooter insurance and also quite frustrated with the myriads of options and the lies told. So yeah, we may get a good deal with "Acme Insurance" but then when it comes time to make a claim, "Acme" is going to fight us all the way to make it painful for us and make it difficult to get a fair claim.

I don't know if I mentioned this before on this forum, but this is one reason why I like British Columbia's public insurance company. By law, everyone motor vehicle must be insured by the public insurance company, ICBC, a province run corporation. And because it's a public corporation, it cannot discriminate by sex, age, etc. It only looks at your driving record to see how high or low a premium you should pay. Some years back, ICBC was in fact the only motorvehicle insurance you could buy. Now, in addition to ICBC, you can buy additional coverage from private insurance but you must buy the basic insurance from ICBC first. This makes auto insurance so much less painful and so much more transparent, in my opinion. By less painful, I mean I dont have to be on the lookout for what's a better deal. Some studies have shown that public insurance companies are less expensive for the consumer than private insurance companies.

Syd · Post by **Syd** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 6:05 pm

Wait for it...

irishtim · Post by **irishtim** » Sat Dec 31, 2011 3:36 am

State Farm insures all our cars and bikes (incl the vintage). No better insurance co out there. A few of you mentioned difficulty with certain scoot models in their database. I just popped by my agent's office and they manually input the info in a line labelled "other". Came back as a Genuine Blur 220cc and was 100% correct. I also like SF as they cover you when you rent a car (saves $10-20 per day). Progressive and Geico won't do that.

michelle_7728 · Post by **michelle_7728** » Sat Dec 31, 2011 5:33 am

I don't know if you are still looking for a cheaper Blackjack, but the dealer where I bought my Buddy 125 a couple years ago has this ad in Craigslist.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/mcd/2752632434.html

You would have to have it shipped...I'm not sure whether tax and shipping would make it too expensive....

SoCalScooter · Post by **SoCalScooter** » Mon Jan 02, 2012 6:35 pm

michelle_7728 wrote:I don't know if you are still looking for a cheaper Blackjack, but the dealer where I bought my Buddy 125 a couple years ago has this ad in Craigslist.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/mcd/2752632434.html

You would have to have it shipped...I'm not sure whether tax and shipping would make it too expensive....

Wow, those are some good prices! I think I am leaning toward a bigger wheeled scoot, but if I wasn't it would be worth the shipping to get one of those buddies!

ed85379 · Post by **ed85379** » Mon Jan 02, 2012 7:47 pm

When my Blackjack was stolen, Progressive called a local Genuine dealer (the one I actually bought it from, and the one I would buy the new one from) to get a value for it. They quoted $2700. Progressive then paid $2700 to me, plus $1000 for accessories, minus $1000 deductible (I've since lowered that to $300), so exactly $2700.

Of course, my shop already knew who they were calling about when they were contacted (since I called the scooter shop first to see if anyone brought it into them), so the amount they quoted was also the exact amount that they charged me for a brand new BlackJack. The stolen one had ~3500 miles on it.

Overall, I lost several hundred bucks worth of accessories, and I ended up spending way more than that on top for better security on the new one.

Lotrat · Post by **Lotrat** » Mon Jan 02, 2012 8:20 pm

Lotrat wrote:So yesterday I got a letter from the CA DMV stating that they were going to suspend my license because I didn't have insurance on a motorcycle I bought last month. I spent an hour in the AAA office and have an insurance card from my visit last month in my wallet so I knew something was up. I gave AAA a call to see what the deal was. They said they have record of me being there, but my paperwork wasn't entered and that I needed to do it all over again. They tried to get me to pay for the past month saying, "You would have been covered if you were in a accident." I told them that I bet I would have had to fight for it and wasn't going to pay for their mistake. I told them that we should start from today since I'm setting it up "today"... A few more threats of going elsewhere with my 6 vehicles and house and they saw it my way. Insurance companies are the devil.

The story didn't end there. It went on for a few more days and 3 more phone calls. Each time the AAA agent said I was all set only to be called by another agent saying the last guy didn't do it right. AAA calls you a "Fleet Owner" when you have more than 5 vehicles and additional manual magic stuff needs to be entered into their special computer system by specifically trained staff. I also don't qualify for a multi-vehicle discount on any vehicle added after #5. I explained to them that this was the most insane interaction I have ever had with an insurance company and that I will be dropping them shortly after 12 years with them and no claims filed. I've never spent so much time insuring a vehicle in my entire life. I guess my money isn't green enough. Crazy.

rkcoker · Post by **rkcoker** » Mon Jan 02, 2012 10:09 pm

State Farm has been on my "BAD" list since they dropped me 20 years ago for being "actuarally unsafe". That's insurance mumbo-jumbo because I got rearended two times in a four year period. The other drivers were at fault but I got penalized. Then went to Allstate, with whom I never had a problem until they re-organized and fired the best agent we had ever met. The regional manager was put in charge of our account and it became thoroughly FUBARed beyond belief. So for the last 12 years we've been with GEICO.
So, everybody has had bad experiences and not with just scooters. Just venting, I'm stuck at work and it's really nice weather outside.