Comprehensive bike insurance explained

Comprehensive bike insurance is one policy that holds 2 covers at the same time. The first is an Own Damage cover, which pays to repair or replace your own two-wheeler after an accident, a theft, a fire or a natural calamity. The second is the Third-Party cover the law requires, which pays for the people you injure and the property you damage while riding. Kiwi Insurance calls the pair, held together in one policy, the Comprehensive Plan.

A Third-Party cover on its own pays nothing at all towards your own bike. If you slide on a wet road at a roundabout and no other vehicle is involved, a Third-Party policy pays nothing, because nobody else was harmed. Comprehensive cover closes that gap. It keeps you legal and it puts the cost of your own repair on the insurer instead of on you.

Why comprehensive cover is recommended over Third-Party cover

Third-Party cover keeps you legal, but it protects nothing you own. Comprehensive cover is recommended for most riders because it pays for your own bike as well as for other people. Take one example. Your scooter skids on loose gravel and hits the shutter of a shop. The shutter belongs to someone else, so the Third-Party half pays the shopkeeper. The cracked panels and the bent brake lever are on your own two-wheeler, and only the Own Damage half pays for those.

• It pays for your own bike. Accident damage, theft, fire, flood and riot damage are all covered. A Third-Party policy pays for none of them.
• It pays when nobody else is involved. A fall with no other vehicle in it, or a bike stolen from outside your home, has no third party. Only the own-damage half responds.
• It still covers other people. The Third-Party cover the law asks for is already inside the plan, so you lose nothing by choosing it.
• It can carry optional covers. Covers such as Zero Depreciation cover attach to the own-damage half. A Comprehensive Plan can carry them, and so can a standalone Own Damage cover. A Third-Party policy on its own cannot, with one exception: Personal Accident cover can be added to any plan, including a Third-Party only plan.

Your own property is the part most riders miss. Say you skid into your own gate or your own compound wall. No part of the policy pays for the wall. It is not a third party's property, and it is not part of the two-wheeler. Your belongings work the same way. A phone in your pocket or a laptop in the under-seat storage is not covered by either half. A helmet and riding gear are covered only if you add Rider Gear cover.

The 2 halves, and why the difference matters

Knowing which half does what makes both the price and the claim much easier to follow. The Third-Party half is priced by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) and costs exactly the same at every insurer for the same engine size. The Own Damage half is priced on your own vehicle, so it is the half that moves, the half optional covers attach to, and the half your No Claim Bonus discount comes off.

The Third-Party cover you are legally obliged to carry is already inside the plan, so a comprehensive policy leaves you with one premium, one policy document and one renewal to manage for both sides of the cover.

That single-renewal point is worth holding on to. The alternative arrangement, a Third-Party policy from one insurer with a standalone Own Damage cover bought separately, protects you to the same extent, but it leaves you with 2 policies, 2 renewal dates and 2 sets of paperwork to keep alive.

What this page covers

This page runs in the order a rider actually meets the decisions: whether the bike qualifies at all, how the cover behaves on a scooter or an electric two-wheeler, what it costs, how to buy it, what it never pays for, who is allowed to ride it, how a claim runs, and what changes when the year is up. Every price on this page is stated as a real number rather than left vague.

The last 2 rows are included because they are the names most often mistaken for comprehensive cover on a renewal quote.

Comprehensive bike insurance is worth taking whenever replacing or repairing your own two-wheeler out of your own pocket would hurt. On a bike still holding real value, a single theft or a single flooded underpass can cost more than several years of the extra premium. On a 14-year-old commuter bike worth very little, a Third-Party policy keeps you legal at the lowest price and is a fair call.

The 6 profiles below are the ones that come up most often. They are written around the bike and the way it is ridden rather than around the rider's age, because that is what the cover actually responds to.

Most privately owned two-wheelers in India qualify for comprehensive cover, and no regulation sets an upper age limit. What does exist is an age limit that each insurer sets for itself. Some insurers stop offering comprehensive cover on a very old bike and offer only Third-Party cover. Others still offer it after an inspection, often at a lower Insured Declared Value (IDV). Kiwi Insurance offers comprehensive cover on a bike up to [number] years old, with an inspection once the bike passes [number] years or has had a break in insurance. Past that age, a Third-Party policy is still available and is still compulsory.

4 things decide the answer: how old the bike is, whether the registration papers are in order, whether it has been modified, and what it is used for. The table runs through the situations riders actually write in about.

Age is counted from the date of first registration on the registration certificate (RC), not from the date you bought the bike.

Riding for a delivery app on your own bike? This is one of the most common reasons a two-wheeler claim is declined. A private policy is priced for everyday personal riding, not for a full day of deliveries. Tell the insurer what the bike is used for and buy the right policy. A claim raised after an accident during a delivery run can be checked against the delivery app's trip record.

There is no such thing as a separate scooter insurance product, a separate electric bike product or a separate high-engine bike product. There is one two-wheeler policy, and the quote simply prices your vehicle.

A scooter is insured under exactly the same rules as a geared bike. There is no separate scooter policy, no separate premium table and no separate claim process. The Comprehensive Plan you buy for a scooter such as a Honda Activa or a TVS Jupiter is the same product, worded the same way, that a rider buys for a geared bike such as a Honda Shine or a Bajaj Pulsar 150. Only the numbers on the quote differ.

That said, this kind of two-wheeler behaves differently on a claim, and it is worth knowing how before you choose optional covers. A scooter is lighter than a geared bike, almost entirely panelled in plastic, usually parked outside, and ridden in dense traffic at low speed. So the claims its owner raises look nothing like the claims a touring rider raises.

What it costs to insure

Engine size does the pricing. Nearly every scooter and moped sold in India falls in the 75 to 150 cubic centimetres (cc) band, from a 110cc city scooter such as a Honda Activa or a TVS Jupiter to a 125cc one such as a Suzuki Access 125, and a moped such as a TVS XL100 is in the same band. Very few petrol two-wheelers sold new today are 75cc or smaller. A few sporty scooters are just above 150cc, such as a Yamaha Aerox 155, and they fall in the 150 to 350cc band with geared bikes such as a TVS Apache RTR 160. The 75 to 150cc band is at the cheap end of the Third-Party table, so the comprehensive premium here is usually the lowest of any two-wheeler on the road: ₹1,500 to ₹2,450 a year before the 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) for a scooter in that band.

Bands are for a scooter 2 to 3 years old, as each row shows. They are before the 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) and assume a Zone A city (one of the 8 largest cities, such as Mumbai or Bengaluru), no claim in the previous year and no optional covers. Your own price depends on the Insured Declared Value (IDV) of the bike, your city and your No Claim Bonus.

The parts a claim is usually made of

A scooter's body is plastic, and plastic carries the heaviest age deduction of any material on a repair claim: half its replacement cost comes off, whatever the age of the scooter. That single fact is why Zero Depreciation cover changes the size of the payout here more than it changes a geared bike's.

Searching for scooty insurance or Activa insurance? Both are the same comprehensive bike policy described on this page. Model names and nicknames are how people search, not how policies are written. Put your registration number into the quote and the right vehicle, the right engine size and the right price come up on their own.

An electric two-wheeler takes the same comprehensive cover as a petrol one, but the pricing works differently on both halves. The Third-Party premium is set by the power of the motor in kilowatts (kW) instead of the size of an engine in cubic centimetres (cc), and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) prices every electric vehicle (EV) band around 15% below the petrol equivalent. The own-damage premium usually goes the other way, because the battery pack is 35% to 45% of what the vehicle is worth.

The Third-Party half, by motor power

The 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) applies on top. Rates are notified by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) and are revised from time to time.

What an electric two-wheeler costs to insure in full

Add the own-damage half and the picture changes. An electric bike costs a little more to insure than a petrol one of the same price, because the part most likely to be expensive to replace is also the part that makes up most of the vehicle.

Bands are for an electric two-wheeler 2 years old, as each row shows. They are before the 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) and assume a Zone A city, no claim in the previous year and no optional covers. Find your vehicle's band from the rated power printed on its registration certificate (RC). A low-speed electric scooter rated under 250 watts that cannot pass 25 kilometres an hour is not a motor vehicle in law and needs no motor policy, so it is not in this table.

How the battery is treated

The battery pack is insured as part of the vehicle, not as an accessory, as long as it came fitted from the manufacturer and is declared on the registration certificate (RC). That means its value is inside the Insured Declared Value (IDV), and accidental damage to it is paid for in the same claim as the rest of the two-wheeler.

• Accident, fire, flood and theft damage to the battery is covered. If a fall cracks the casing or a flooded street puts water through the pack, that is a normal own-damage claim.
• Capacity lost over time is not covered. A battery that holds 80% of its original range after 4 years has not been damaged. It has aged, and age related damage falls outside every motor policy.
• The age deduction applies to a replacement pack unless you hold Zero Depreciation cover. On a part this expensive, that deduction is the single biggest number on the claim, which is why the cover is worth more on an electric two-wheeler than on anything else.
• A battery you subscribe to rather than own is not yours to insure. On a swappable or leased-battery vehicle, the pack belongs to the battery company and is covered under their contract, so tell the insurer at purchase and the Insured Declared Value (IDV) is set on the vehicle alone.

Charging, and what happens if something goes wrong

Damage to the electric two-wheeler caused by a fault while it is charging is covered by the base plan, in the same way a fire from any other cause would be. What the base plan does not reach is the wiring, the socket or the property around it, because those belong to you or your building rather than to the vehicle. A home insurance policy is what answers there.

The charger supplied with the vehicle is treated as a fitted accessory. Declare it, and its replacement cost is inside the Insured Declared Value (IDV). Leave it undeclared, and a stolen or damaged charger is not paid for.

Which optional covers matter on an electric two-wheeler

Zero Depreciation cover matters most, because the battery is the most expensive part and the age deduction on it is large. Return to Invoice cover matters next, because an electric bike loses value quickly in its first years. Engine Protect cover is written for a petrol engine. An electric two-wheeler has no engine oil and no air intake, so check what the cover actually pays for before you buy it. Roadside Assistance cover helps when the battery runs flat far from a charger, as long as towing is part of the service.

A comprehensive premium is the Third-Party part plus the own-damage part, less your No Claim Bonus, with 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) added on top. The Third-Party part is notified by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) and is identical at every insurer. The own-damage part is the half that varies, and it is worked out from your bike, its age, its city and your claim record.

The Third-Party half, by engine size

The 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) applies on top of every figure in this table, as it does on the electric rates above.

What a full comprehensive premium looks like

Put both halves together and this is the range most riders land in. Commuter two-wheelers and electric models are in the table because they are what a large share of riders actually own, and leaving them out is how a price page ends up answering nobody.

All figures are for a two-wheeler 2 to 3 years old. They are before the 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) and assume a Zone A city, a full year with no claim behind you and no optional covers added. The own-damage half falls every year as the Insured Declared Value (IDV) falls.

The Third-Party half of 2 quotes on the same bike will always be identical. If one quote is cheaper overall, the difference is entirely in the own-damage half, so compare 2 quotes at the same Insured Declared Value (IDV) or you are not comparing them at all.

Documents needed to buy comprehensive bike insurance

These 3 documents are needed for every bike:

• The registration certificate (RC) of the two-wheeler. This gives the registration number, the engine and chassis numbers, the date of first registration and the registered owner's name.
• Your previous policy number, if the bike has been insured before. This is what carries your No Claim Bonus across.
• Proof of identity and address. Any 1 of an Aadhaar, a passport, a voter card or a driving licence, under the regulator's customer identification rules.

2 more documents are needed only in specific cases:

• The invoice, only on a bike bought new. It sets the Insured Declared Value (IDV) in the first year and is what Return to Invoice cover pays against later.
• A no-objection certificate from the lender, only if the bike is on finance and being moved between insurers.

When the cover starts, and whether there is a waiting period

There is no waiting period on comprehensive bike insurance. Cover begins at the time printed on the policy document and a claim on the first day is as valid as one in the eleventh month. The only thing that delays the start is an inspection on a bike that has been uninsured, and cover then starts once the inspection is accepted.

Buying a policy the day before an old one runs out is the cleanest approach, because the new cover then begins the moment the old one ends and no gap is created at all.

Changed your mind after buying? A bike policy has no free-look period. That is a feature of life and health insurance, not of motor insurance. You can change the details on a bike policy at any time through an endorsement, without cancelling it. You can also cancel the policy by telling the insurer. The refund for the unused period depends on the insurer's cancellation terms and on whether a claim has been made. The compulsory Third-Party part cannot be cancelled while the bike is on the road without other valid cover. Kiwi Insurance's own terms: [Kiwi Insurance cancellation and refund terms].

Every detail on a bike insurance policy can be corrected while the policy is live, by an endorsement. An endorsement is a written change the insurer issues as an updated policy document. Kiwi Insurance issues one within [Kiwi Insurance endorsement turnaround]. The one thing you must not do is leave a wrong detail sitting there until you need to claim.

Wrong details reach a policy in 3 ways: the online form pulled the vehicle record incorrectly, somebody typed a digit wrongly, or something genuinely changed after the policy was issued. The fix is the same in all 3 cases, and the table sets out what each one affects.

It does not matter who made the mistake. A dealer, an agent, a family member or you may have filled in the form. The policy is still in your name, so checking it is your job. Report the error as soon as you see it. A wrong detail found only after an accident can hold up the claim, and a wrong detail that changed the price, such as the engine size or the use of the bike, can lead to the claim being refused. Correcting that kind of detail may mean a small change in premium.

Read the policy document the day it arrives, with the registration certificate (RC) open next to it, and check 5 fields: registration number, engine number, chassis number, your name and your mobile number. It takes 2 minutes and it is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.

The 3 that end claims most often. No valid licence, alcohol, and delivery work on a private policy. All 3 are checked at the start of any two-wheeler claim of any size, and none of them can be cured by an optional cover. Everything else on the never-covered list is either age related damage or somebody else's responsibility.

Comprehensive bike insurance covers your two-wheeler whoever is riding it, as long as that person holds a valid licence for that class of vehicle and is riding with your permission. Lend your two-wheeler to a friend who holds a licence, and a claim for damage they cause is paid exactly as if you had been riding. Lend it to somebody without a licence, and the whole claim can be declined.

The person who borrows your bike does not need insurance of their own. The policy belongs to the two-wheeler, so a friend riding it with your permission is covered by your policy, not by one of theirs. What matters is the licence they hold, not whether they own a policy. The claim is raised on your policy, and it affects your No Claim Bonus.

The pillion passenger

On a Comprehensive Plan, the Third-Party half pays for injury to a pillion passenger that you are legally responsible for, in the same way as it pays for injury to anyone else, with no upper limit. On a Third-Party only policy, whether a pillion passenger is covered depends on the policy document. A paying passenger is never covered on a private bike. What the plan does not do is pay the pillion passenger anything when the injury is not your legal responsibility, such as a fall with no other vehicle involved. That gap is what Pillion Rider cover exists for, and on a two-wheeler that regularly carries a second person it is one of the cheapest useful covers on the list.

The owner-rider is treated differently again. A Personal Accident cover of ₹15 lakhs for the owner-rider is compulsory on every two-wheeler policy, unless you already hold one of that value on another vehicle you own. It pays on death or permanent disability of the registered owner while riding. It stays with the owner, not with the bike, so it does not pass to a buyer if you sell the bike.

Do optional covers renew on their own?

Optional covers do not renew on their own. Every optional cover has to be chosen again at each renewal, and a renewal quote that simply repeats last year's premium may not include them. The one exception is a multi-year policy, where the covers you choose run for the whole term and are chosen again when it ends. This catches people out most often when they move insurer, because optional covers never carry across from one insurer to another. Check the policy document each year and confirm that the covers you thought you were paying for are named on it.

There is no limit on how many optional covers one policy can carry, and there is no separate claim to raise for any of them. They change how the single own-damage payout on a claim is worked out. Some carry their own cap on how many times they act in a policy year, and past that cap the claim is still paid, with the usual deductions back in place.

A comprehensive bike insurance claim runs in 7 steps: you tell the insurer, the claim is registered and given a number, you file a police complaint if one is needed, an assessor looks at the two-wheeler, the repair is approved and begins, the payout is worked out, and the insurer pays and closes the claim. On a straightforward bike repair the whole thing takes 3 to 7 days. On a theft it takes 1 to 3 months, because the police file has to be closed first.

This is the general process and it is worth knowing in its own right, because it is the same at every insurer and it tells you what you are responsible for at each point.

If you disagree with the decision

The insurer decides first, on the assessor's report and the policy document, and has to tell you in writing which clause the decision rests on. If you think it is wrong, there are 3 steps, in order, and each has to be tried before the next.

• The insurer's grievance officer. A written complaint to the insurer's grievance route, which must be answered within the time the regulator sets, currently 14 days.
• The Bima Bharosa portal. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) runs the Bima Bharosa complaints portal, which takes the complaint up with the insurer on your behalf.
• The Insurance Ombudsman. The Insurance Ombudsman decides free of charge on claims up to ₹50 lakhs. The decision binds the insurer but not you, so your right to go to court is untouched.

The documents you need for a bike claim

• Your policy number and the registration certificate (RC). These show the claim belongs to this two-wheeler.
• The licence of the person who was riding. It must be valid for that class of vehicle on the day of the accident.
• Photographs of the damage. Take them before the bike is moved, from every side, with the registration plate in view.
• A copy of the police complaint. Needed for a theft, for injury to another person, and for riot or malicious damage.
• The repair bills and payment receipts. Needed only on a pay-and-claim repair at a garage outside the network.
• Your bank details. A cancelled cheque or a bank statement, so any amount due to you can be paid.

If your bike is stolen: when the Insured Declared Value (IDV) is paid

A theft claim is not paid straight away. The insurer first needs proof that the bike is really gone and cannot be found. That proof comes from the police, so a theft claim takes longer than a repair claim, usually 1 to 3 months.

How many times you can claim in a year

There is no fixed limit on the number of own-damage claims you can raise in a policy year, and every valid claim is paid. 3 things change as the claims add up: your No Claim Bonus goes on the first claim, a few optional covers stop acting once they hit their own yearly cap, and your next renewal is priced for the claim history. On a bike, 2 small claims in one year usually costs more in lost discount than the repairs were worth.

Some optional covers do have their own yearly limit. Zero Depreciation cover is the usual example. Kiwi Insurance allows [number] Zero Depreciation claims a year on a bike policy. Past that number, a claim is still paid, but the normal age deduction on parts comes back.

On a two-wheeler, a small claim is often not worth raising. You pay the deductible and the age deduction on parts anyway, and you lose your No Claim Bonus at the next renewal. Before you raise a small claim, get the repair estimate and weigh it against the discount you would lose.

Everything else on a Kiwi Insurance claim follows the ordinary process described above, because that process is set by regulation and by the policy document. The deductible is the same, the age deduction is the same, and the exclusions are the same. What is different is that you are not the one holding it together.

The ladder is the same at every insurer in India. The discount applies only to the own-damage half, never to the Third-Party half, which the regulator fixes.

2 things end a No Claim Bonus. Raising any own-damage claim, however small, takes it to zero at the next renewal. Letting the policy lapse for more than 90 days takes it as well. Selling the bike does not, because the discount is yours and moves to your next two-wheeler on a certificate from the old insurer.

Moving insurer does not end it either, as long as there is no long gap. It carries across when the new policy starts the day the old one ends, or within the 90-day grace period. It is lost if the gap runs past 90 days. State the level you have earned when you take the new policy, and the new insurer verifies it against the old one. A Third-Party claim on its own does not end it, because the bonus is attached to the own-damage half.

The enhanced No Claim Bonus Kiwi Insurance offers on the car side is a car-only feature and is not available on bike insurance. On a two-wheeler the ordinary No Claim Bonus applies, building from 20% to 50%, and a claim takes it to zero.

At renewal 4 things change on their own: the Insured Declared Value (IDV) of your bike falls by another year of the age deduction, your No Claim Bonus moves up a level or resets to zero, the Third-Party rate may have been revised by the regulator, and your optional covers come off unless you choose them again. Renewing before the old policy expires keeps all of it intact and needs no inspection.

A renewal does not wipe out last year's claim. The claim stays on your record, and it is the reason your No Claim Bonus goes back to zero. What does start fresh is the policy year itself. Any yearly limit on an optional cover, such as the number of Zero Depreciation claims allowed, starts again from the renewal date.

Riding even 1 day without valid insurance is an offence under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The fine is ₹2,000 for a first offence and ₹4,000 for a second. A third or any later offence is also fined ₹4,000, because the Act sets one figure for every repeat offence. A prison term of up to 3 months can apply as well.

Documents needed to renew bike insurance

• Renewing with the same insurer. Your previous policy number or the registration number is usually enough. Nothing else is needed unless a detail has changed.
• Moving to a new insurer. Your previous policy document, which shows the No Claim Bonus you have earned, and the registration certificate (RC).
• After a break in insurance. The same papers, plus the inspection photographs the insurer asks for before cover restarts.
• If a detail has changed. Proof of the new address, the new owner's papers after a sale, or the invoice for a newly fitted part.

Renewing for more than 1 year at a time, and whether it is cheaper

You can renew comprehensive bike insurance for 2 or 3 years at once where the insurer offers it. A longer term does not usually come with a separate discount. What it does is fix your premium for the whole term, so a revision of the Third-Party rate by the regulator during the term does not reach you, and it removes 1 or 2 renewal dates you could miss. Any discount depends on the insurer. Kiwi Insurance's multi-year price: [Kiwi Insurance multi-year discount].

Inside a multi-year policy the Insured Declared Value (IDV) of the bike still steps down each year, so a claim in year 3 is paid against a year-3 value rather than the value you started with. Your No Claim Bonus is applied at the start of the term and moves up for the whole term at the end of it, so a clean 3-year term lifts you up the ladder in one step rather than every 12 months. Optional covers are chosen once and run for the whole term, which is the single place on a bike policy where they do not have to be picked again each year.

The trade is flexibility. A 3-year policy is harder to leave part way through than a 1-year one, because the refund for cancelling part way through is worked out under the cancellation terms in the policy document, and it can be less than the unused share of the premium. If you expect to sell the two-wheeler inside 2 years, a 1-year policy usually costs less in the end.

Whether there is a discount for renewing early, before expiry

Most insurers do not give a separate discount for renewing early. What renewing early does buy you is certainty: no gap, no inspection and no risk to a No Claim Bonus that on a 5-year record is worth half your own-damage premium.

Can you move down to a Third-Party policy part way through the year? You cannot move down to a Third-Party policy mid-term. A Comprehensive Plan is a single 12-month contract and the own-damage half cannot be handed back for a refund. You can cancel the whole policy and take a Third-Party cover instead, but the refund follows the cancellation terms in the policy document and can be less than the unused share, and you lose the No Claim Bonus year you were part way through earning. Waiting for the renewal date costs less.

“We built Kiwi Insurance so that on the day it matters, you have one person who answers, owns your claim, and sees it through.” — Saurav Jaiswal, Co-founder, Kiwi Insurance