Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Insurance .... (Continued from page 11) One of the really good things about group insurance is tl,at you can't be excluded for riding competition, which is not the case with most individual policies. It's hard to say with any reliability that you should pay this much and no more for group insufdnce because the policies are so different. 1 would start shopping for another policy if the premium was much more than $35.00 per month for employee and family or $12.00 per month for a single person. If you happen to be self-employed, you're not eligible for group insurance but you can get into a thing called a "Multiple Employer Trust". This is not as good as group insurance from several standpoints, bu t is far better than nothing. In fact, these are very loosely organized "groups" and they offer coverage that will be adequate for most needs. The cost and benefits are comparable to group insurance. A good guy to go see for this type of insurance is Jim Manning who has an office tastefully decorated with a Honda packing case and a Castrol Oil drum. Manning races himself and has gone on his head often enough to know what kind of coverage you need. He also gave me most of the information for this article, after seeing the first two, which means he has a sense of humor, anyway. Manning's modest ambition is to write all the motorcycle insurance in the world which, from an insurance company standpoint, must be equivalen t to collecting all the typhoid bugs in the world. A broker that you can trust is a real asset in dealing with insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals. A person can easily be caught in a vise between inflated medical charges and shruuken benefits. A good agent knows, first of all, the insurance company's real legal liability which is something no lay person is in a position to discover. He also has a book which enables him to evaluate a medical charge fairly accurately. This book is simply a tabulation of various medical services on a "point" basis. Points are assigned to the service on basis of the importance and the difficulty of th.e service so that a heart transplant is worth many points while lancing a boil is worth relatively little. By multiplying the "points" by another factor which is determined by the location in which the physician is operating, the broker can evaluate the fairness of the charge. At f\T.t glance this system would seem to benefit the insurance company more than the individual but this is not really the case. Medical care does vary greatly in quality. Even with such a simple thing as a ,broken ieg, poor quality medical service can have you limping for life, or suffering periodic pain. The idea then is to get the best possible medical care allowed by your insurance. If you are allowed $1,000 for a broken leg, use every cent of it to get the very best care you can buy and get your broker to tell you just what y<>u can afford. If he won't, get a new broker. Remember, you don't save money on quality of care that you choose; the insurance company does. The last "card" that you can get is supplied by individual insurance policies. This is a last resort action and probably best forgotten. Individual policies are f\Tst of all prohibitively expensive and secondly almost worthless for coverage. Most have a Ne1N&Used: Sales competition exclusion which can be interpreted very widely. Most important, some of the group policies are written so loosely tbat anyone is eligible so there is no reason for buying an im:Uvidual policy. Incidentally, my daddy once told me that any insurance policy that was advertised in four colors in the Sunday supplement had adequate coverage only for the garbage. Besides your personal insurance, you are sometimes covered by the club sponsoring the event that you're riding or by the track. Some associations cover all their riders in an event. Others like the AMA cover only professional riders. Before we go any farther, there are two terms that must be discussed: primary and secondary coverage. Primary insurance pays regardless of any other insurance that you might. have. Sometimes if you are covered by two primary policies you can make a profit on an accident. Secondary policies cover only that portion of the expense not covered by a primary policy. Naturally, second policies are much cheaper than primary policies because the company stands a good chance of not having to pay anything even if there is an accident. Every event that is run should be covered by participant insurance for several reasons. First of all, motorcycling activity is inherently dangerous and some of the accidents tend to be very expensive. A 70-mph·crash can very easily result in $10,000.00 worth of medical care. Many group policies won't begin to handle expenses on'this order. Besides this, most group plans are "scheduled" which means that only so much is allowed for each type of service. In effect this means there are more holes than you'd find in a fisherman's net. "Blanket" secondary insurance fills in the holes. Th e second reason for having sponsoring associations provide participant insurance is that there are many people racing who have no insurance at all, especially kids who have recently left home and beginning professionals. Right now the AFM, ACA and the Sidehack Association have participant insurance for all their events. CMC has none and IRE occasionally has some. The AFM coverage is approximately $3,000 blanket medical and $5,000 life. The ACA coverage is about the same. The cost is about $2 to $3.00 per rider and the biggest determining factor in the cost is the average speed of the contestant. The AMA has been offered several attractive plans for insurance for their sportsman riders but to date they have not been interested enough to bother taking the question to the membership, let alone to act upon it. Without getting into specifices, it would be possible for the AMA to insure all its sportsman riders in all events from road races .to gypsy tours for a very nominal figure. It would probably cost less than the magazine they tried to force-feed us a couple months back. If the AMA isn't interested, District 37 has sufficient members to provide insurance' at farily reasonable rates independent of the AMA. To be fair, the proposal. that have been rejected before were made to fearless leader Bill Berry, who is no longer at the helm. A propo.al is currently being made to new fearless leader March. It might be interesting to see if he decides to tell us abou t it. ' For professional riders the AMA offers primary insurance of about SIO,OOO medical and $2,000 life, WILDCAT••• a reliable motorcycle Financing & Insurance Available Bl.s and parts available Immediately. Dealer inquiries Invited. Wildcat Distributor: FRAN K WHEE LER 659 W. Lancaster Blvd., Laneaster, Ca. MASTER CHARGES BANK OF AMERICA (805) 942-2312 bu.t the medical only covers 75% of the hospital bill. The way this usually. works is, when the hospital finds out w.hat the insurance arrangement is, it jacks up the bill so that the insurance company pays 100% of the actual cost. Then whatever they get from the rider is gravy. Since the insurance companies never lose, and the hospital is coming out ahead, you know who is footing the bill. To finish this, there are several frequently asked questions that haven't fit neatly into the article that slIould be answered. One such is, Can clubs insure their members? For all practical purposes, no. There are not enough members to make it economically feasible. The Sidehack Association is able to insure their members because they race by themselves. But any club of solo riders would not be able to because there would be other uninsured riders on the same course at the same time. Naturally any association which holds races and requires all riders to be members of the association could obtain the same sort of insurance as the Sidehackers. How much insuranc'c does a competition rider need? According to Manning, SIO,OOO is a good figure, it its all working. That's medical, not ille. Most life insurance falls somewhere between a farce and a fraud and should be purchase only if there's someone you really dig who could starve if you went to that big hare and hound in the sky. If you think in those romantic terms aod she's that incompetant, by all means buy life insurance. Jim Manning needs the bread. What is the relative safety of va~ious events? Speed is the real determining factor but quality of equipment and experience playa large part as might be expected. In terms of probable seriousness of an accident, road racing heads the list, with mile flat track a close second. Then half mile, hare and hounds, motocross, sportsman scrambles, down to trials. Next week, insurance for promoters. West Coast Dlst. for 111 PENTON Motorcycles ..... Torsten Ha'llman Racing, Inc. Torsten Hallman special desll" leathers & raclnl equipment U.S. 01 st. fCl' TrellebCl'I Moto~ross tire. For claaler Info. write CI' call 5345 Tlmken St., La Mau, Cal. 92041 (114) 4&8-1402 Discount to Ascot Racers Parts-Service & Access. GUE H. MYERS YAMAHA 4151 Redondo Beach Blvd., Lawndale, Ca C\~\ (213) 542-4041"ve'/c4' Largest stock in the desert Available now WANTED .otorerele _,,'alie experienced only. 40 hr. week. Insurance, profit sharing and other benefits. ~. A 111 A S A K • I Call Bill Ir. 467.2141 360 C-Z 250 C·Z 360 8 speed Husky 250 Husky Call Collect And Ask For Ralph Bookout (714) 375-4411 Bookout Motors Ridgecrest, Cal if. 350 KAWASAKI BIG HORN available now Draco's Motorcrcles 1629 S. Standard Santa Ana, Ca'if. (114) 543-9688 KAWASAKI ONLY Specialized TrlUlllph - Honda Repairs - CntCIIII Raclnl- Enllnas Machlna Work - lletlssa Kits Cyl. Borlnl - Head Portlnl MIKE BURKE MOTORCYCLE SPECIALTI ES 15171 Raymer St. VIII NU}'Sl Cal. 91406 Telephone (213) 71u-0779 sa'es and service 'argest parts stocl on west coast i"1 Marlard 'ISlraiCe Draco's "He, Mr. Deale,,'" SPEED KITS now available for 350 BIG HORN DESERT SET UP SCRAMBLES sar s We carryall types of insurancB coverage - garage I iabi I ity fire - theft & dealer bonds SI" Up T. 251 JOHN I. MAYNARD INS• 3441 Motor Ave., L.A., Ca. . (m) 836-5211 '" & . Q. o .... en ~ en '" ~ (f) ~ w Z W .J () >()

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