A Guide to Motorcycle Insurance in New Mexico (NM)
New Mexico is a magnificent place to explore on a motorcycle, but before you take the plunge and set out on the open road it is essential that you get good quality, comprehensive New Mexico Motorcycle Insurance that covers you for any unforeseen accidents of circumstances.
In this article I am going to discuss the different options that you have when seeking to get motorcycle insurance in New Mexico, as well as laying down some of the legal minimums that you MUST have in order to ride a bike in the state.
I will also discuss some of the areas where the state minimums fall short, as well as give some guidelines about what you should really be looking for with a NM Motorcycle Insurance policy.
What are the state minimums for New Mexico Motorcycle Insurance?
The state of New Mexico does lay down some minimum requirements for motorcycle insurance cover in order to ensure that everyone who rides on the roads of Albuquerque or Las Cruces does at least have SOME cover.
This is largely in place to protect other motorists, and so the focus is very much on liability insurance.
The minimums are as follows:
$25,000 – Bodily injury liability for one person
$50,000 – Bodily injury for one accident
$10,000 – Property Damage Liability Cover
These limits are generally referred to a 25/50/10 cover.
Are the New Mexico Motorcycle Insurance Minimums really adequate?
The first thing that you have to realise are that the minimum requirements in the state are not designed to be recommendations of how much New Mexico Motorcycle insurance you should ideally get. They are simply benchmark figures of a minimal safety net, and hence if you want to be covered in a more optimal fashion then you are going to have to get more insurance.
So one of the first things that you may want to consider with regards to your policy is increasing the amounts of liability cover. The 25/50/10 cover of New Mexico is about average for personal liability levels among the states, but $10,000 for personal property cover is on the low end of what would be normal, as $25,000 worth of cover is about normal.
There are also numerous other states who have even their basic minimums set at three times the level they are in New Mexico (Maine for example), and so really think long and hard before you simply opt for the lowest levels possible.
It is tempting to think of getting New Mexico Motorcycle Insurance as being a bit like overcoming a hurdle, and that the best way to do that is simply to opt for the lowest possible levels of cover where you can still ride around legally. But the truth is that this misses the point that no-one is going to bail you out if you are involved in an accident, but cannot afford to pay for all the medical expenses that you incurred as a result of it. No-one is going to step in to pay your bills or pay out if you are sued after an accident. But all of that is possible if you get the right insurance policy that properly protects you.
(You can see New Mexico Motorcycle Insurance legal guidelines on the New Mexico Insurance Departments website - https://www.nmprc.state.nm.us/id.htm)
So don’t think of insurance as just another expense. Think of it as like the ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card in Monopoly, as something that gives you another chance if things don’t work out as planned and you find yourself in some kind of incident involving your motorcycle.
The $10,000 figure for property liability cover for example is very low, and you only have to think about what the average cost of a new car is to know that anything except an extremely minor road accident is likely to leave higher damages to pay out than that.
Some Other Types of Cover To Consider
You should also consider taking out a more comprehensive, New Mexico Motorcycle Insurance policy that covers you for theft, collision cover, vandalism, fires and uninsured motorist cover.
Inevitably these will add to the costs of the policy, but at the end of the day you need to decide how bug a safety net you want to carry around with you when you are riding your motorcycle around Rio Rancho, Santa Fe or any of the other great places in New Mexico.
Get a selection of New Mexico Motorcycle Insurance Quotes and see exactly what is available, and that way you will be able to make a more informed decision about which cover is best for you.