Tell Ontario you want better motorcycle insurance - the petition is live | Page 6 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Tell Ontario you want better motorcycle insurance - the petition is live

Conclusion2: There has to be a a new system thought up.
Good luck. It's working well for them and it's a (relatively) free market. Why would they change?
Unless there is regulation to change it, they wont. That's why I am worried about bike insurance. It's such a small niche market that it's likely to be overlooked when implementing new policies & regulation. Someone said it before in this thread I believe; bikes are such a small slice for them that they don't even bother quoting driver profiles for bikers specifically. They reuse known automobile stats even though one of the highest areas of claims is guys in their late 40's crashing their $40,000 cruisers on the weekend. Not to mention the hospital bills to get those old geezers up and healthy again!
 
idk why Americans even bother coming into Canada, they got everything we got and then some down here
Quebec has snow...lots of it...and it lasts late into the season. And their dollar gets them more here...except they leave in a rental car and take their frustrations out in the snowmobile forums. And rightly so. They all say the same thing..."they thought Canada was a safe place!"

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Update.

I've met with execs at 2 insurance companies so far and all I've really got is an education on how they look at motorcycles. Here are a few observations (if it's in "red and quotes", it's exactly what they said to me):

1) Most insurers really don’t care to insure Motorcycles. "Two primary reasons: 1. the high value rides, especially the Harleys, get stolen quite often and 2. when there is an accident, both the physical damage to the bike and the Bodily Injury (BI) claims are quite large on average. It’s all about the math – dollars in verses dollars out. Most personal lines carriers want a client’s personal lines business (Home & Auto for example) but really only offer MC coverage to be able to attract a larger set of customers – hence the statement; it’s a necessary evil - a very disrespectful choice of words in my opinion."

I asked both why actuarial data from places that require transparency proves their case that payouts are double that of car accidents BUT bike claims happen in in less than 2% of all policies where car claims are above 12%. Neither could explain, both said that don't really look at the details.

2) Both confirmed they don't do a lot of actuarial work on bikes, they look at premiums and losses and as long as the former is greater than the latter they move on. Car insurance pricing is closely tied to the vehicle and owner profile that is backed up by detailed vehicular and demographic data. MC insurance is based on a lot of unsubstantiated "we thinks" and demographics of car drivers.

This explains why 55 yr old heavy cruiser riders using their bikes 5K/year make up the largest number of insured riders yeyt pay the lowest insurance.

3) When asked "how many, how much to get your attention". "Hard to say but I’d say at least 1000 or more. Let’s say the average bike premium is approx. $2,000 and you have 1000 members, so you bring $2,000,000 to the table. An association would need to represent the riders and any insurer looking at this would want to know how belonging to the Association is going to reduce the potential for loses verses just insuring someone walking in off the street. Basically you would have to show over a 3 to 5 year period how these numbers would work out. This is not an easy thing to do and would require someone with some actuarial knowledge to crunch the numbers and then sell the proposal to the insurer.

When asked "If the $2m was reachable, what else would the insurer need to understand?" "Consider two things:
  1. Can I demonstrate to an insurance provider that there a reasonable profit to be made by taking on the Association’s members?
  2. Will the membership be loyal and stay with the program over many years even if rates go up? As members come and go there would have to enough critical mass to keep the profit/loss ratio in order.
If the answer is no to any of the above, you be maybe pushing that string!"

In summary, to get an insurer to consider doing something:

Minimum $2Mill in NEW premiums - can be bike, auto, home
Show them how the payouts are less than 75% of the premiums collected
Show them how risk is mitigated by forming an association: i.e membership qualification based on riding/driving record, age, etc
Show them how this is sustained over time, particularly if premium:payouts ratios force increases in premiums.
 
I asked both why actuarial data from places that require transparency proves their case that payouts are double that of car accidents BUT bike claims happen in in less than 2% of all policies where car claims are above 12%. Neither could explain, both said that don't really look at the details...

I admire your self control, must have been hard to not punch their lights out right about then.
 
idk why Americans even bother coming into Canada, they got everything we got and then some down here

What the eff? Is that seriously what you got out of Mladin's post? Who gives a crap why they come here?
They come to have fun and spend money which is good for the country.

To let the Police shaft us, as well as tourists who come here to have a good time. That is the effing problem.
Like Mladin said, the fact that the insurers are sitting on their greedy ***** doing nothing and choosing to cover their losses by taking more and more of our money and for the tax financed police to also sit on their ***** to eat doughnuts and roll up coffee rims is ridiculously infuriating. The question is, what can be done?
 
it’s a necessary evil

First of all, thank you, Mike, for all this work!

It feels that these guys have everything backwards. They don't consider it as an opportunity to get more clients but more like they are doing a favor to us..

I think that $2M shouldn't be a problem if we will get around 500 people because e.g. I pay ~$6k/year for all insurance policies and I would love to bring all policies to one company. At the same time, I do not understand the claim about "loyalty". Why the hell I should tolerate the insurance company if it will increase my rates without any reason and there are other companies with better rates? In my opinion, insurance companies should be loyal and provide discounts and additional features to people who use their services for a long time..

However, I really appreciate your work and I think you have a very good understanding of what is going on (especially that they making claims without even checking the stats). Maybe your efforts actually will help them to open eyes and see the opportunity here..
 
I don't think its the insurer 100% at fault, they operate withing a set of rules your elected gov't put into place over the last 15 years. I know this sounds like beating a dead horses, but McGinty and Wynne are the most at-fault parties here.

Here's what they did wrong:

1) Caved and pandered to the insurance lobby by:
  • Guaranteeing profits by making AB expensive and mandatory
  • Allowing insurers to write the rules that would regulate them
  • Allowing insurers to set prices based on their own computations of payouts - no transparency required
  • Hiding tax grabs by exchanging health care system contributions for liability limitations (a part of your insurance premium goes directly to OHIP)
2) Pandering to the Legal lobby:
  • Lawyers and fraudsters rehab clinics et al. created a lot of unintended employment -- jobs they Libs feared losing with legislative changes
 
It an utter shame how only 832 people have signed the petition. Are there only 832 bikers who want to lower their insurance rate or are fed up with these cartels and goons?


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There are approx 220,000 motorcycles and mopeds registered in ON, I'm guessing more than half in the GTA.

For this to go anywhere, there needs to be a show of financial force big enough enough to excite insurers, or a numbers force big enoughh to excite politicians.
 
I would say that we need some media coverage in order to get more support from motorcyclists or politicians.. Maybe something like a huge group ride?
 
Getting vendors on board should be a good move. Mike we should probably start with the forum sponsor, GP Bikes, and then work our way through the list. First get their signatures (staff, etc.) and then figure out what kind of additional support we can get from them.
 
What the eff? Is that seriously what you got out of Mladin's post? Who gives a crap why they come here?
They come to have fun and spend money which is good for the country.

To let the Police shaft us, as well as tourists who come here to have a good time. That is the effing problem.
Like Mladin said, the fact that the insurers are sitting on their greedy ***** doing nothing and choosing to cover their losses by taking more and more of our money and for the tax financed police to also sit on their ***** to eat doughnuts and roll up coffee rims is ridiculously infuriating. The question is, what can be done?

I agree you with two and I mean that Americans have their own alternatives and all that stuff is just going to deter them even more from coming over
 
All the petition needed was to be posted to the right groups on Facebook to get that last jump in numbers.
It will surpass 1000 by tomorrow morning.
 
All the petition needed was to be posted to the right groups on Facebook to get that last jump in numbers.
It will surpass 1000 by tomorrow morning.
I tried this, with a big local harley group on facebook. Who I thought if they are like me paying through the nose on insurance, and have some good numbers to get this going. All I got was criticism and a bunch of crickets. Yet when a recent post came around complaining about how someone's insurance jumped dramatically they all chimed in to complain about it. :rolleyes: It's a good group but not really interested.
 
I tried this, with a big local harley group on facebook. Who I thought if they are like me paying through the nose on insurance, and have some good numbers to get this going. All I got was criticism and a bunch of crickets. Yet when a recent post came around complaining about how someone's insurance jumped dramatically they all chimed in to complain about it. :rolleyes: It's a good group but not really interested.

Yeah I know, sometimes people are like that. Anyways as I said, we hit 1K supporters today.
 
According to StatsCan there were 219,455 "motorcycles and mopeds" registered in this province in 2017. I applaud reaching 1000 names on the petition but it's clear it's not reaching enough people. This issue should attract every rider in the province; there should be 10 or 20-thousand names on it.

It's also worth noting that in 2013 the number of registrations was 211,294. In four years the number increased by 8161 or nearly 4%. There's evidence that there's growth potential here if it could simply be made more affordable and fair.

Back to the original point: Social media is incredibly powerful; how is this petition not more of a thing? What are we missing? What avenues do we have at our disposal to spread the word to the tens of thousands of rider/owners out there to add their names?
 

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