Unfortnately, I never really thought much about insurance before my accident. Hopefully you will never have to deal with this, but in case you do maybe you can learn a bit from my experience and be covered.
Automobile Insurance
The minimum car insurance requirements in Arizona are $15,000 for medical and $10,000 for property. With the economy being what it is, there are likely a lot of drivers out there with just the bare minimum coverage. If you are hit by a car and the person has just those minimums, you will only get (up to) $10,000 for your bike and (up to) $15,000 for your medical expenses. There are very few instances where a 4,000-lb Isuzu RLL contacting a 20-lb Specialized Allez will be sufficiently covered by the $15,000 minimum medical coverage. Unfortunately, there is also a risk that the driver won't have any insurance at all.
A quick side note. If you get hit by a car, no matter how good you think you feel, call the police, have the accident documented and go see a doctor to get examined. Especially if your helmet touches pavement. You will have a ton of adrenaline from the accident and you won't notice all of the damage that was done to your body. It may take days for you to realize that you've got something wrong, and if you didn't get the accident documented it's too late. Get a CT scan if you hit your head, you may have a concussion. It's much better to be safe than sorry. Don't be a hero and don't feel like you are doing the driver a favor (you aren't) -- report the accident and then get checked by a doc.
Also, if you sustain serious enough injuries or significant property damage, you may benefit from hiring an attorney. I am not a fan of lawyers and am not big on suing anyone, but there are a lot of areas where the expertise of a lawyer will be beneficial to you. For example, knowing what to do if/when the hospital mails you a lien notice. If you are going to hire an attorney, do not talk to the driver's insurance company (let the lawyer communicate with them).
So, what do you do when the driver's insurance won't cover your expenses, either because their coverage is too low, or because they don't have any insurance at all? You can purchase "un-insured motorist" and "under-insured motorist" coverage on your personal car insurance policy. Then, if the person who hit you doesn't have enough insurance to cover your bills your own insurance will kick in. When your insurance is used in these circumstances you won't need to worry about your rates going up -- they won't. To add them to your policy is fairly inexpensive and well worth it if you need it. If you ride a lot in a busy city there is definitely a risk of getting hit -- so it makes a lot of sense to be covered in case that happens.
In my experience (3 days in the hospital, some fractured vertebrate, patellar cartilage damage, and concussion), the medical settlement amount would have been between $100,000 and 150,000. That includes lost wages and pain & suffering which will vary by person and severity of accident. I've been told that typical vehicle-bicycle collisions average around $100,000. Based on that information, I would recommend cyclists carry at least $100,000 of un-insured and $100,000 of under-insurance coverage.
Additionally, you may want to add MedPay coverage, which will directly pay for your medical bills up to the amount you select. If you have a $1,000 medical deductible, you may want to carry the $1,000 MedPay coverage so nothing is out-of-pocket. You do have the option of having your MedPay coverage higher than your deductible, which would mean cash in your pocket, but you aren't trying to make money -- you just want to cover yourself if the unfortunate should happen.
Another quick side note. The law requires that you are not allowed to insure yourself for more than you insure others, meaning if you want $100,000 of under-insured covered you will need to also have at least $100,000 of liability coverage.
For damage to your bike, the insurance company will reimburse MSRP plus sales tax. It is a good idea to keep a record of everything you have, with the date it was purchased and it's MSRP. They may deduct a percent for depreciation (something like 2-3% per year). When they pay you for the damage they then own your bike -- but I've been told that often then never come to claim it, so there is a chance that you will be able to salvage parts off it even after being reimbursed for those parts. You'll probably want to get something in writing from the insurance company stating that they are releasing the property back to you. Keep this in mind when you start buying replacement parts, you may want to hold off to see if you will be given back an item that was not damaged beyond re-use. Since there is a good chance that you will retain the damaged property, you should include everything you can in the claim, even if the damage done was very minor.
I put together a template that you might find useful for documenting your property.
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Click here to download the Property Template property-template.xls Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet [20.0 KB] |
Home Owner's Insurance / Renter's Insurance
There are a few instances where your home owner's or renter's insurance will come in to play. Your insurance policy may cover damage from fire, lightning, windstorm, hail, explosion, riot or civil commotion, direct loss from looting, aircarft, vehicles, smoke (if loss is sudden and accidental), vandalism, theft, and falling objects (though damage to the falling object is not included). Your insurance coverage may be different so you'll want to check. I would think the main items you'd want to make sure you have are fire damage and theft coverage. You will also want to check to see what your deductible is and consider lowering it if deemed cost effective.
By the way, the "falling object" coverage will not cover damage to your bike when, during a race, an unfortunate crash results in multiple bikes and bodies falling on it. It is meant to cover falling tree limbs or shade structures. Yeah, I know... bummer. You still need to adhere to the "only race what you can replace" guideline.
You will want to document as much of the property you want covered as possible. Keep all your receipts as proof of purchase and take pictures of everything inlcuding the serial number on your frame. If you no longer have receipts take pictures and write down as much information about the item as you can. The more thorough your documentation the better. In Strava, you can input all of your components to track mileage and time for each -- take advanatage of that feature.
Side note again. You may want to write your persoanl information on a small piece of paper and tape it to the inside of your head tube so it's hidden from the thief but available for verification if you retrieve the bike and they've ground off the serial number. If your bike is stolen, immediately notify the police, send flyers to bike shops all over Arizona, notify all the Play-It-Again Sports style stores, and keep your eyes on Craigslist and Ebay. You can even set up a Google Alert. If you see your bike on Craigslist or Ebay contact the police immediately.
I've received conflicting information regarding property replacement value from home insurance coverage. One source (lawyer) stated that replacement value is MSRP plus sales tax. Another source (insurance agent) says it is "retail cost at time of replacement." In either case, you want to be able to prove that you owned the property and be able to identify manufacturer and model. So don't just take a picture of your bike, get close-up photos of your shifters, derailleurs, etc. For any expensive item (e.g. power meter) you want to have as much proof as possible.
For more information, BicycleLaw has a good article (click here to view).
Like I said, I hope none of you find yourself in a situation where you need to contact your insurnace agent and hire a lawyer. If you do though, hopefully you will be covered enough that your financial burden is minimal and you can focus solely on recovering and getting back on the road. If you have any questions or if I missed anything feel free to comment below.
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