Insurance in Ontario, Canada (eh?)

I'd like to do some insurance pricing for my bike to make sure I'm getting the best deal :S well, at least screwed less.

Who is your insurance provider? I'm in the GTA and upwardly mobile for the right price!

Thanks

Rob.

I use Dalton Timmis . Not sure if the head office is in Burlington or Hamilton, but they been good so far...

I'm using Primmim. Not sure I'm spelling that right.

Second year with them.
Insurance is too much here in Ontario.
I paid over $900 3-4 years ago, and it's been going down every year since.
It's at $500+ at the moment.

Anyone use a Classic Motorcycle Insurance here in Ontario? Who do you use.?
I think I may have a Business card from one. Got it at a bike show.

Hey gang. My buddy is a broker here in Sudbury and he told me that there are only three or four companies that now insure bikes in Canada.

He has put me into Kingsway General and the price is around $600 per year as rstnick mentioned, This does not include fire and theft, just basic coverage. I was with Primmum before and their rates were higher.

Apparently there is also a company that insures vintage bikes for discounted rates but if you are using the bike as a daily rider (commuting to work) they might not want to take the policy.

I would simply google Ontario Vintage Motorcycle Rates, and this should get you started.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada
1977 Kz650 Custom. 810 and Gpz engine upgrades. WG Mikuni Smoothbore carbs.

Wow, I feel bad now. I just put up the 82 bucks for minimum insurance for my bike in North Dakota, and I thought that was steep. are you guys getting fully insured or something?? I just got the bare minimum to ride down here.

Becker wrote:

Wow, I feel bad now. I just put up the 82 bucks for minimum insurance for my bike in North Dakota, and I thought that was steep. are you guys getting fully insured or something?? I just got the bare minimum to ride down here.

Same here, Becker, I pay around $86/yr and that includes a $2000 rider for damage to "add-on parts" I'm sure the majority of what our Canadian members are paying is all the other riders/drivers who couldn't be bothered w/buying insurance. Such is the price for a "socially enlightened" insurance system. Just wait, it will be here soon.

My $500+ is for the bare minimum.

ronjones wrote:

Becker wrote:

Wow, I feel bad now. I just put up the 82 bucks for minimum insurance for my bike in North Dakota, and I thought that was steep. are you guys getting fully insured or something?? I just got the bare minimum to ride down here.

Same here, Becker, I pay around $86/yr and that includes a $2000 rider for damage to "add-on parts" I'm sure the majority of what our Canadian members are paying is all the other riders/drivers who couldn't be bothered w/buying insurance. Such is the price for a "socially enlightened" insurance system. Just wait, it will be here soon.

You are correct Ron about our unusual insurance system and one day it very might spread across North America as there are some definite advantages to insurance companies who only care about reducing costs for settlements and repairs.

Several years back our enlightened:( politicians in Ontario introduced "No Fault Insurance." Here is how it works.

It used to be that if you got into an accident, the person at fault would have had all of the repairs made by their insurance company. Not any longer. Today if you get into a wreck, your own insurance company pays to fix your car irregardless of who is at fault. The other person has their company pay to fix their car.

The basic rationale behind "No Fault" is that insurance companies are more likely to scrutinize claims on policies if they are paying the bills themselves. In the long run, by taking care of their own repairs, the costs will be lower as they are more accountable compared to having another company pay the bill, without caring what it costs the other insurance company. The belief is that the repair bills will hopefully be a wash out and the whole system will be self-equalizing, so to speak.

Not to point any fingers, but from auto to home and personal liability insurance, there were a lot of suppliers that were getting rich off of the system by jacking up repair costs knowing their was really no accountability. Our provincial government felt that with this type of system they were more likely to keep overall settlement costs and policy rates in line.

On a personal note, I spent the fall and part of the winter restoring an old Jeep Wrangler TJ for my kids. Two weeks ago, one month after it was put on the road, my daughter driving the Jeep was T-boned by a guy who wasn't looking coming off a light and smashed into the Jeep's driver side. Luckily my two daughters in the Jeep weren't injured.

Once my insurance company verified that the other driver had valid insurance, they then had repair estimates for my Jeep and decided to offer me a cash settlement instead of repairing the Jeep. Lucky for me I had kept all of my receipts for body panels and mechanical repair and parts and they ended up giving me replacement value based on the retail price for the old Jeep. My company would have had to pay for my repairs under the law and the other driver (a customer of my newspaper) had his own insurance company take care of his bills. Luckily he owns a car dealership, but it is pretty expensive to repair the front end of a 2008 Chevy Tahoe!

The same principle applies to any vehicle from bikes to snowmobiles to boats.

So, in a nutshell, there is the simplified version of how our system works but the fact remains that we pay a lot more than our US cousins. Incidentally, driving without insurance in Ontario is a minimum $5000 fine with the possibility of a one year license suspension. Pretty strong incentive to pay the piper.

Cheers-Colin Firth -Ontario Canada

Hey Colin, My State,(MD has bought into the socilaist model also) has "no fault" and the way you discribe it is correct. The thing is that there is no "punishment" to the at fault driver. The moron that T-boned your daughters should have been responsible for both repairs as well as any medical expense's. His insurance company could then recoup it's losses by charging higher rates. IMO, No Fault ends up penalizing the innocent, because the good driver that is involved in X #'s of accidents has his rates raised, no matter that they have not been at fault. The poor drivers, just go merrily on their way w/rates raised only as much as the innocent drivers. So good drivers pay for the bad driving of others. If bad drivers were penalized for their accidents, w/higher rates, then the rates for good drivers would go down, because many of the bad drivers would no longer be able to pay the rates or would be subsidizing the rates of the good. If they continue to drive, then they can be criminally libel for their actions.
Me, I'm sick of subsidizing the lazy and the ignorant.

I'm with you on this point Ron. Those at fault should have to have some sort of slap on the wrist with higher rates. Given that the guy who hit my Jeep was a minor shareholder in the car dealership, I would be willing to bet that his insurance company doesn't look to kindly upon having to repair a fully-loaded company demonstrator model. The fleet rates for dealerships is probably high enough already. At least he can get the parts and work done at his own costs and save the insurance company some cash.

The one good thing about this accident (aside from the girl's not getting injured) is that they ended up paying me more than what I probably could have sold the Jeep for.

Luckily for me I put the Jeep's ownership and insurance in my wife's name. With each separate policyholder, my insurance company gives one freebie accident before rates are adjusted upwards. I still have my freebie and certainly am not interested in ever having to use it which is jjust like having a "Get out of jail free pass" in the board game Monopoly. Nice to have, even better not to have to use it:)

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada

Me, I'm sick of subsidizing the lazy and the ignorant.

Totally true, Ron. That's the BIG reason that no-fault fails in a financial sense. I believe the at-fault driver gets points on his licence so the government DOES punish him somehow....but that only seems to work if he has a couple of bad at-fault accidents in a certain time period....usually 2 years. If that happens, his licence gets pulled and he has to go through a re-education process to get his licence reinstated. Of course, if he's the usual no-neck mouth breather, a suspended licence is no barrier to his driving or not.
For my classic bikes, I pay C$110.00 annually for the minimum coverage the law requires.
My 2006 Bandit costs C$709.00 for full coverage with a $500.00 deductible.
We have all our vehicles and our home insurance with one carrier and we are in a big group with my wife's employer so that's probably why the rates are low. The carrier is the Cooperators which used to be Direct Protect. I believe they are active in Ontario....but usually only deal with company groups.
I know that insurance costs in Ontario have kicked the stuffing out of the bike biz there. Witness McBrides and Cycle World going belly-up in the last 2 years....and probably a bunch of smaller shops that no one really hears about.

Wow, I thought I was the only one disgusted by insurance rates in Ontario. I'm definately going to look into Dalton Timmis.


McBrides and Cycle World got pinched by Honda going universal dealer too (car dealer selling powersports as well). I did the lift truck service work for Kuehne and Nagel (Honda's 3rd party logistics provider), it was sad to see all those bikes come back, some only halfway through PDI.