Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Would you do it?
I cannot afford 3k a year insurance, even if i could, i wouldn't pay it! in a typical crash i could fix it myself for that much.. not to mention a grand excess.

I'm 20, ride sensibly to work 5 days a week, and on the weekends the occasional ride with friends/family. I don't race or ride stupidly.

4 months until my fulls!

Can you afford a brand new '05 bike up front without any sort of secured loan? If not then no lender will give you the money anyway.

Would you want to lose $15k ?

Anyway I a was lucky enough in your position I wouldn't insure it either. Maybe a 3rd party. More worrying than crash is thieves I heard esp. for such wanted bike. Went to brighton kwaka last weekend and they said all are sold out and need to wait till May to buy one (not that I am buying one )

yeah i'd make sure it could be seen by me where ever i go.

I can have 10k ready, and thinking i could borrow the other 5k as an unsecured loan.
But thieves.. hmm. hows the risk on the north shore?

Yeah, they would. Unsecured personal loans are handed out hand over fist every day of the week to people who can demonstrate an earning capacity...

...interest rates on unsecured personal loans are typically lower than on dealer-arranged finance (through someone like Yamaha's YMF, or GMAC, say), repayment terms are flexible (pay how much you want, when you want, pay out early without penalties, miss a payment or two if you're ahead of schedule), and you can sell the bike on without any "oustanding finance" malarkey hanging over it.

Dealer finance is for suckers.

The original poster being 20 years old and being quoted $3,000 for insurance on a brand-new Kawasaki, I'd say he's more likely to be looking at a ZX6 than a ZX10.

I've never comprehensively insured any of my bikes because, to my mind, there's virtually no way it can work out as value for money, even with a moderate premium. Instead, when I lived in Southwestern Sydney with dodgy fuckers down the road from me, I used to warm my bike in the garage, never left it out of my sight when it was parked in the open, and ensure nobody was tailing me or watching me when I'd be getting home.

A late-model sportsbike should not be commuted on unless it can spend the working day parked somewhere inaccessible or somewhere where everyone can be at least moderately trusted.

If I worked in the Sydney CBD and had to park my bike on the street, I'd have a dedicated commuter in the shape of something like a GT550 finished in Aussie Racing Primer Gray, or, more likely, I'd just take the fucking train.

EDIT: The North Shore is an absolute Mecca (no pun intended, honest) for bike thieves in Sydney. Quiet suburban areas due to the population largely living in small households (no grandma or uncle visiting from the old country keeping an eye on the place during the day) and being either forced workaholics or perpetual socialisers who are never at home allows the thieves easy movement.

That said, there are enough people living around there who have their heads so far up in the clouds that they'll leave their bike out on the street all night rather than rearrange the X5 and the Range Rover to allow them to get the bike in the garage. So long as you keep a low profile, your bike won't be the first to go

Vash wrote: I'm 20, ride sensibly to work 5 days a week, and on the weekends the occasional ride with friends/family. I don't race or ride stupidly.

4 months until my fulls!

You could be Valentino Rossi out there Vash, but the likelihood of a crash is not necessarily reduced by the amount of skill you have or risks you take. Cagers are a law unto themselves and unfortunately you can never assume it won't happen to you.

Vash - just my 2c worth ...

I think it's stupidity not to insure. I know from personal experience that it's not always the rider that has the final say. I was side swiped by a careless ute driver that stopped me from riding for two years and wrote off my bike and did $6K worth of damage to a parked car. Can you afford to pay this if you are not found in the right? Also consider other 3rd party damage claims, what if you hit a pedestrian? What if the bike is stolen or maliciously damaged, you suffer a hit and run while it is parked and no witnesses, need I go on ...

I wouldn`t ride without a helmet, jacket and gloves - I wouldn`t ride without insurance ...

Great choice of bike though ...

I always factor the insuance into the cost of the bike, like a ventura Rack sure you may never use it but you only have to look sideways in here to see what insurance is for. Traffic n Deviants isnt lessening so why take the risk.
For 10large theres a lot of scoots out there which will still make the adrenal glands work overtime, that can be blinged into something unique that will turn heads in both "bling n performance" departments.
Happy scoot shopping n safe riding.
My 2 bobs.
Cheers Brett

Dealer finance is for suckers.

Very true.

Colettezzr600 wrote:Cagers are a law unto themselves and unfortunately you can never assume it won't happen to you.

No, but when it does, you can quite safely assume that it will happen because of the other guy's fuckwittery, and that it'll be his insurance fairy waving her magic wand over your damage.

Insurance companies rely on paranoia. They rely on you not sitting down and doing some sums.

It is probably safe to say that, in a major east-coast city, it is impossible for most people under the age of 40 to insure a bike comprehensively while paying less than ~15% of the bike's total value in premiums, with an excess coming to ~5% of the bike's value.

For a, say, $12,000 bike, that means that it costs something of the order of $2,500 to lodge a claim, and a bike would have to be pretty far gone for $2,500 in secondhand parts to not be able to repair it.

...and that's only in the bike's first year. After two years of owning $12 grand bikes you forego insurance on, you will have saved almost $5,000 which you could put towards repairs... MunkeGirl's ZX6 could be brought back from the dead for that kind of money without batting an eyelid.
Three years...

Don't leave your bike parked someplace where it could get bowled over by wayward motorists (the kerb works well in these circumstances, I find), keep it hidden from your neighbours, work on your paranoia in traffic, and you'll be fine.

For amusement's sake, I still ring up for quotes every now and then. In the five years I've been riding big bikes, I've saved something of the order of the purchase price of a brand-new 10R... at the time I chortled at being quoted $4800 to comprehensively insure my R1 in 2001, there was no shortage of people I knew who were actually paying that much to insure R1's and GSX-R1000's, and who were then having to make claims because they rode just as sensibly as they thought about insurance.

EDIT: To end on a practical note, apply the following rule. If you can get comp insurance for $500 a year, then go for it (provided that's not a quote to insure something like a GPz550). If you can't, learn to sleep with one eye open and one hand on a spiked bat. It's worth it.

All valid points there IK, but if - or when - the time came to pay for accident repairs (or medical costs), how many people would actually have that "saved" lump sum readily available?

I certainly wouldn't!

first bike off your fulls in Sydney, man you've got a lot of crashin ahead you.
Take Pontikats advice get soething you can affrod to lose if you can't afford insurance. There's some good zx6's or zzr600's out there that go, stop and handle real well for well under $10K(eg. there's a 2000 zx6r with 2000kms for under $9K in http://www.Bikesales.com.au ). You might be a two wheeled god and never crash but the reality for the vast majority of us is that you're gonna put it down sometime. Also you want to able to enjoy your riding without have to sweat on never crashing...get a well maintained dunger .
Good Luck which ever way you go
Seanzx7r

redzedx7r wrote: first bike off your fulls in Sydney, man you've got a lot of crashin ahead you.

Please note that he himself didn't specify which '05-model Kawasaki he's got his eye on.

Ok heres some of my riding history..
I've been riding 12 months.

First bike was a 1990 ZZR250, dropped it once in a corner, front slipped on frosty road.

Sold it, Bought a new Suzuki DR650 dual sport, dropped it alot in the dirt, and dropped it once on the road at oxley, crap mid corner.

Been riding every day to work on the DR for the past 6 months, and havent had any incidents as yet. When i'm riding in traffic, i'm alert.

In the twisties, i've gotten over the mindset of trying to take the next corner as fast as i can, but feel more like cruising around it at a decent, but not knee dragging speed. Yeah, i should get a tourer...
but i love that new ninja too much.

The bike is parked in clear view from my desk at work, and is locked up in a garage at a near zero crime suburb.

*drool*