Motorbike Insurance

Bike insurance can hugely vary depending of a large range of factors from your bike’s value to where you live and everything in-between.

Some policies are as little as £60 and some are as much as £2,000 – it simply depends on your individual circumstances and needs. Generally the average motorcycle premium is around £200 – £300.

There is no hard and fast rule for this, but think of it like this…

If your bike is worth a lot of money, it costs more to insure that a bike worth very little. This is due to the fact that it’s 1) more expensive to replace and 2) more attractive to thieves.

The age of the bike will obviously have influence on the value too.

If your bike has a powerful engine, and sports styling then once again, you’re going to experience higher insurance. This is due to the bike being able reach high speeds and quickly, therefore the potential for it to be involved in accidents are higher.

If you’re looking for a cheap bike to insure then your best bet is a low value bike with a low to medium power engine, but the problem is that most people don’t want this type of bike!

There are still many more factors at play here such as where you live, your level of security, your riding experience etc. all which will help an insurer to calculate your level of accident / theft risk – and charge a reflective premium.

Read our guide on the cheapest motorbike to insure.

If you have just purchased insurance for your motorbike then you will be insured from your inception date, which is the day you chose your insurance to start on. You will find this date on your paperwork.

You can check to see if your motorbike is insured on the Motor Insurance Database, it is a a central database that holds every insured vehicle in the UK.

Your motorbike can take a few days to appear as insured on the MID, it is not automatic or immediate.

The MID is NOT updated on weekends and bank holidays either, so it will not show your vehicle is insured the moment you hit the buy button!

If you have received your insurance documents then this will be enough to prove that you are insured if you need to. The police know that the MID is not immediate too.

Check your own vehicle on the MID here.

If you are looking to ride a motorcycle on public roads in the UK, you must have insurance for it. Majority of insurers will not provide a quote if you do not have the correct type of license to insure that bike. For example if you have a 125cc, you will need a minimum of a provisional (CBT) license to ride it. If you have a bike at home but are not interested in riding it, it will either need to be SORN or insured under your home/contents insurance.

A motorcycle cannot be ridden on public roads without insurance. If it is a dealer selling the motorcycle, they should have insurance which will cover test rides. If you are buying the bike privately the owner may still have in insured and if you have a current insurance policy that allows riding other bikes cover on a third party basis, you could test ride it that way. If you don’t, you may want to see if a friend or relative has riding other bikes on their insurance and they would be able to test ride it for you. It is illegal to ride a motorcycle without insurance and it could leave you with points and hefty fines.

To insure a motorcycle you must be the registered owner and keeper of the bike. If you are not, this can invalidate your insurance and an insurer may not pay out for a claim. To ride a friends a motorcycle, you would have to ask them to add you as a Named Rider on their personal insurance policy, then you will be covered through their insurance. Some policies do offer a Riding Other Bikes cover, which could allow you to ride another bike, on a third-party only basis, as long as the bike is insured elsewhere. So it might be worth checking if your insurance policy covers this if it is something you are regularly looking to do.

No, you can’t insure a motorcycle you don’t own as you have to have an insurable interest for an insurer to agree to provide you with cover. This doesn’t effect if your vehicle has been taken out under a finance or leasing agreement. Occasionally, an insurer may allow you insure a vehicle you don’t own, if your spouse does own it but this is down to individual companies.

All our insurance policies are year-long 12 month contracts. If you require insurance for a shorter period of time, other companies may offer short-term insurance. You can set up a policy and cancel it however you will incur cancellation fees/charges and you will not gain your NCD if the policy does not run the full year.

Own more than one bike? No problem! We offer multi bike insurance, where you can include all of your bikes on one policy, saving you time and money. We find it best to provide multi bike insurance over the phone so give us a call on 0345 872 3614, calls are charged at local rate which are usually in your inclusive mobile minutes!

We offer custom bike insurance where we will make sure that all of your modifications are properly insured in the event of claim.

Take a look at our guide for determining what is a modification and what is an accessory on your bike if you want some more advice about properly insuring a custom bike!

Scooters, mopeds, cruisers, tourers, sports… whatever style bike you have we can cover it. You can choose from optional extras, include pillion cover to carry passengers, EU cover and more…

From premium manufacturers like BMW and Ducati, to the most popular manufacturers like Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha, all the way to smaller, newer and less expensive manufacturers like Mutt, Herald and Mash.

We’ve got the cover that will match your needs and budget, from three levels of cover to choose from, comprehensive, third party fire and theft or third party only.

We also have our own products with discounts on optional extras, so you can tailor your bike insurance but also save money with Devitt Enhanced and Devitt Evolution!

Get in touch, we can cover young riders and new riders. Best advice here is get a bike to match your ability, build your experience, skills and No Claims Bonus.

Most insurers will allow you the option to transfer your insurance to another motorcycle, as long as it meets their criteria. It is always best and recommended to speak to your insurer before you purchase a new bike to make sure the change over can be done easily and allow time for any issues you may face. If you can time a change of bike the end of your policy year, this may make the process easier for you.  You cannot transfer your insurance to another person, you can only add them as a named rider to your policy.

We offer third party only cover (TPO), third party, fire and theft (TPFT) and comprehensive insurance for your motorcycle, so select the level of cover you need.

Third Party Only insurance can be the cheapest, but not always the right cover that you’ll need as there’s no protection if your bike is stolen or damaged; speak to us if you’re not sure of the level of bike cover you need, we’ll be happy to help.

Yes, our add-ons include Legal Expenses, Personal Accident cover, Helmet & Leathers cover, four different levels of RAC motorcycle breakdown cover and more. It’s totally up to you what you want to buy, nothing is auto-included “for free” (ie at a cost to you somewhere). Choose pillion cover if you need it too.

You tailor your policy to the right cover that you need.

We offer discounts on our optional extras as well if you want to buy a few of them, see our discounted optional extras packages here.

Good question, insuring a motorcycle doesn’t need to be difficult… you can get motorcycle quote online in minutes or if you need a little extra help, such as when buying insurance for the first time, you may have lots of machines or your bike has various mods, then we advise that you pick up the phone and give us a call.

If you’ve had problems insuring your bikes in the past, then speak to us and we’ll do everything we can to get your covered.

Most things, such as your name, date of birth, address etc you should know (!) but a few things such as your motorbike licence, No Claim Discount, riding history, claims / convictions, you may want to dig out before you start your quote!

Once you have provided all of your details then we compare quotes from leading UK insurers to give you the cheapest quote we can get, with the cover you want and need. Our quotes are valid for 30 days so you don’t need to buy straightaway, you can recall you quote at a later date using your reference number.

Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, you can trust us to provide you the best motorcycle insurance for you.

We’ll be here for 24/7/365 if you need to make a claim.

Insurance can be confusing at the best of times so to make it easier to understand we’ve compiled a list of our top tips of everything you need to know about motorcycle insurance.

There are loads of factors that underwriters have to consider when calculating your motorcycle insurance premium, from your security to your postcode and experience. We will compare policies and premiums for you from leading UK insurers to get you the right cover.

Motorcycle insurance premiums depend on a number of different factors that will have an impact on the price of your policy. The more years of claim free riding will build up your No Claims Discount, which would give you a discount on your premium, this is capped at 9 years as it reaches maximum discount available. Some other factors include age of the rider, premiums do tend to be higher for younger riders. Where you live can effect the premiums as big cities tend to be seen as a higher risk. Also, you should bare in mind the type of vehicle you are trying to insure, for example an expensive brand-new Sportsbike will probably cost more to insure than a few years’ old 600cc motorcycle.

There are lots of reasons to carefully consider the security devices you use on your motorcycle and getting a discount on your insurance premium could be one of your reasons.

Not only will additional security measures deter theives, but it they will often buy you time if they attempt to steal your bike. No security device will ever stop a determined thief but layering your security devices will definitely lower the probability of it happening to you.

Do as many of these as you can and you could save money on your motorbike policy:

• Chain and ground anchor
• Disc lock
• Alarm
• Immobiliser
• Tracker (better chance of recovery if the preventative measures don’t work)
• If you can’t put the bike out of sight, make sure you cover it

Your overnight storage is an essential factor in your motorbike premium, especially if you live in a big city. Leaving your bike on the road or accessible to opportunist bike thieves without other security measures is often going to result in a larger premium, as it’s quite easy to put a bike in a van!

If you’re lucky enough to own a garage, then great. A garage is the best way to store a motorcycle overnight. Locked sheds with concrete bases may be classed as a garage by some underwriters, but it’s always best to get on the phone to us and check.

If don’t have a garage but can store you motorbike out of sight in other ways such as your back garden, behind a locked gate.

If none of the above options are available then you should use a bike cover as a minimum!

Yes it can! Get extra training that’s recognised by insurers to help boost your experience rating.  Insurers will provide discounts for extra motorcycle training courses such as RoSPA, , IAM’s RideCheck & Skills for Life, Enhanced Rider Scheme (ERS) etc.

These discounts can range between 5% and 15%. These discounts are provided by the insurer but brokers such as Devitt (of course) will offer additional discounts for certain additional training on top of what an underwriter may offer you. For example take a look at our page supporting THINK!

Have you got your bike value right? You may have purchased your bike for £12,000 five years ago, but is it still worth that now? Vehicles depreciate in value over time, so make sure you keep an eye on this at renewal.

Unless you own a Classic bike and utilise a form of agreed value. In the event of a damage or theft claim – the value will be determined by its current market re-sale value, which accounts for current demand, condition, mileage, modifications etc.

Make sure you refresh your motorbike to a realistic value to make sure you are not paying more premium than you need.