Essential Bike Insurance Tips Every Rider Should Know

Mountain biking’s popularity has exploded over the last decade with more and more people getting out on the trails, and it’s easy to see why. Off-road riding lets us live a bit wild: gnarly descents for adrenaline junkies, tricky trail features for riders up for a challenge, and for the fitter riders there’s hills for days. But it is these edgy characteristics of mountain biking that make it more prone to accidents and serious injury than many other sports.

As mountain biking becomes more popular with increasing numbers of riders on the trail networks, there’s even more chance that things don’t go as planned. So it is worthwhile considering how much risk we are comfortable with and how to plan for the unexpected.

The good news is, for the price of a few beers a month you can have some peace of mind while you enjoy everything that mountain biking has to offer.

Let’s talk about the types of insurance most relevant to mountain bikers.

Types of Insurance Cover

There are several types of insurance cover worth exploring if you are a mountain biker, but your choice depends on what sort of riding you do (racing or recreational), what you want to insure against, and your budget.

Here are the top four insurance must-haves for mountain bikers:

Public Liability Insurance

This insurance covers you against the financial sting of claims made against you if you accidentally injure someone while riding or cause loss or damage to their property.

Let’s imagine you’re flying down a single track the wrong way: the trail has clear direction signs but you’re new to the trail network and struggling to find your way around. You head around a bend hidden by a swathe of grass trees and crash into a rider, knocking them off their bike and into a tree. The person has multiple injuries and makes a claim against you.

If you have a current public liability insurance policy you can then make a claim on your policy for the incident. So for the cost of a couple of beers per month you’re covered, which means less stress if and when things go wrong.

Personal Accident Insurance

This insurance covers your non-Medicare expenses if you happen to crash and injure yourself while riding. Non-Medicare expenses include things like physiotherapy, private hospital beds, dental, and more. It can also cover permanent injuries (up to a certain amount) and even death. Personal accident insurance has multiple benefits, and it’s worth checking the various product disclosure statements to compare. If you have private health insurance, you must claim it first and then claim your out-of-pocket expenses through the personal accident insurance policy.

Income Protection

Personal accident insurance often has an income protection component that kicks in if you can’t work due to your riding injury. There is usually an excess period and a timeframe the benefit will be paid.

Bike Insurance

Bike insurance has your back if your pride and joy is in an accident, stolen, or damaged. Not all insurance policies include it, so do your research first. Check out the section on specialist cycling insurance below for more.

Choosing the Right Insurance Option

Ok, so you now know the types of insurance you need, but have no idea where you get it? We hear you. Mountain bike insurance can be confusing at first. Here are some tips.

The first place to start is your national sporting body and state-based advocacy group membership. AusCycling and state-based advocacy groups include insurance cover with their memberships for active members. We dig a little deeper below.

AusCycling Membership

Many of us already have an AusCycling membership, so it’s worth checking what insurance is included before forking out for other insurance products. For those who race, AusCycling membership is a must to compete in any sanctioned events.

For the rest of us, AusCycling offers several other membership options that include public liability and varying levels of personal accident insurance cover. The personal accident insurance also includes a loss of income benefit and death benefit.

The memberships most relevant to mountain bikers are the AusCycling Lifestyle membership for recreational, social, or non-racing cyclists and a Race Off-Road membership for mountain bikers keen to race. Both options offer 24/7 cover when riding in Australia. Make sure you read the exclusions for the insurance cover relevant to your membership.

AusCycling doesn’t cover personal bicycle insurance, so if you’re keen to protect your rig, check out our other sections below.

The insurance included in each of the AusCycling memberships is summarized below.

State-Based Advocacy Organizations

Another option is to become a member of your local advocacy organization such as Bicycle Queensland, Bicycle New South Wales, Bicycle South Australia, Bicycle Network in Victoria and Tasmania, and WestCycle in Western Australia.

Like AusCycling, their memberships (yearly or monthly) include public liability insurance, personal accident, and income protection insurance comparable with AusCycling’s product. Their memberships also offer other perks such as legal advice, rewards, and an incident debriefing service.

Bicycle Queensland’s Director of Advocacy, Andrew Demack, says choosing a membership with a state advocacy group “…is a great option to take if supporting your local cycling community is important to you and you are a recreational rider wanting some peace of mind while out and about on the trails.”

However, if you’re only after bike insurance or insurance cover while you race, this is not the option for you because the insurance product included with the memberships does not cover personal bicycle insurance (e.g., damage, fire, or theft) or riders taking part in races.

Although, Bicycle Queensland’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Mike Blewitt, let it slip that they are working toward offering an incentive to Bicycle Queensland members wanting bicycle insurance in the coming months. So head over to their website for more details.

Your Home and Contents Insurance

A lot of people include their bike on their home and contents insurance policy because it seems to make life easier having insurance on one policy and renewals are a breeze. But unfortunately, it often doesn’t provide enough cover or the right type of cover for all the risks involved in mountain bike riding.

Specialist Cycling Insurance

There’s a growing number of specialist cycling insurance companies that provide specific bike and public liability insurance for a reasonable fee.

Velosure offers a premium mountain bike-specific insurance policy that covers theft, transit, accidental damage, racing, personal accident cover, and more.