Become a Member: Get Ad-Free Access to 3,000+ Reviews, Guides, & More

Insure My Ride closing down

Insure My Ride insurance

Budget online motorcycle insurer Insure My Ride is closing down in February leaving riders to pay more if they continue with insurance colleague Shannons.

Insure My Ride has posted a notice on its website and sent letters to their customers advising them they will close from February 23.

Parent company AAI Limited says they have “made a strategic decision to discontinue” the brand.

Customers will still be covered by Insure My Ride until their due date.

Meanwhile, they have been advised that Shannons will contact them about five weeks before payment is due to offer continued insurance.

Both companies are authorised representatives of AAI and part of the Suncorp Group.

Shannons quote

We contacted Shannons for a quote and found that the same bike would cost an extra 57% to insure annually. We also couldn’t do the quote online, but had to phone or email them.

While no two insurance policies are the same, the excess was also $100 more, but the Shannons policy did add $3000 worth of gear cover and a choice of repairer.

Motorbike Writer has published a couple of advice articles on motorcycle insurance: Top 10 tips and How to save.

The main tip is that you should always seek another quote every year and realistically readjust your bike’s market replacement value.

In our experience, Insure My Ride has always been the cheapest, although it is a no-frills policy.

We have never had any experience on making a claim through them.

It seems a shame that a no-frills discount agency such is this is closing its doors on riders.

  • Tell us who you are insured with and what you think of them! Leave your comments below.
  1. I’d imagine from shopping around recently that their strategic decision amounts to “we have the cheapest brand in the market with IMR, so if we kill it and force everyone to go elsewhere (given we own a number of the ‘elsewheres’ anyway) we stand to make a killing”.
    Seriously – 66% increase is just raping the customer.
    That said, I recently got a quote from TIO (NT) for my two bikes – nearly 300% thank you very much to Allianz owned TIO. They couldn’t offer an explanation – when I asked if they simply didn’t want motorcycle business they assured me they did. Yeah, of course you do …
    So be it. What options do we have? One place I rang wouldn’t touch either bike, “too high performance” apparently, for a 1200 boxer adv bike. Really?
    Worrying times.

  2. That’s terrible news. I have used them for the last 5 years and unfortunately I *DID* have to make a claim and they were excellent to deal with.

  3. I’m with QBE & have been since I started riding almost 14yrs ago. Been very happy with their prices & their service. Also found out recently I can do fortnightly payments instead of the usual monthly or annual. Have been good when I had to make a claim too.

  4. I have never made a claim and am currently with InsureMyRide, so cannot comment on any insurance agencies ‘walking the talk’ regarding policies & claims. I will possibly switch to Suncorp / GIO / and all the other associated residual umbrella companies embessled with fingers in the global, money hungry pie & get a multi policy, no claim discount. What more can we do? Beg I spose. Our policies are basically paying wages, overheads & supporting some sort of unethical global international enterprise. Times are a changing. Especially when insurance, like society seems to be based on fear now days.

  5. I am an Insure My Ride customer. I had a claim a long time ago.. The service was great! Sad to see it go. A mate of mine just signed up with Youi for insurance on a brand new bike worth over $25k. Their original “price” was $300 dearer than the eventual price they settled on…..Just goes to show there is room to move if you are a good negotiator. Or how much they will sting you for if you are not!!

    1. Your friend may not be insured at all!
      Youi aka you idiot has been caught out by its consoltants falsifying details to get the quote down to an acceptable level.
      Clients have had claims rejected due to false information on their disclosure statements.
      And be careful when filling out their forms they may word a question so that you answer what you think they’re asking. Eg.
      Do you have a 60%no claim bonus?
      Have you had any accidents?
      You might think they mean at fault accidents as the cost of the quote will skyrocket but they mean any accidents.
      And don’t give them your real phone numbers or address until you’re happy with the quote or they’ll hound you for months with cold calls.

  6. I am with NRMA and have been for over 40 years, so I have several policies with NRMA and also have a 60% no claim bonus, my bike is covered by comprehensive insurance for $31,300 with a $695 excess for a total cost of $339.73 per year.
    I don’t think the cost is too bad, especially when you consider the rip-off for Compulsory Third Party Insurance in NSW. The cost of CTP for my bike is $620.90.

  7. I’m with QBE and their pricing and claims experience are excellent. I’ve got quotes a couple of times from Shannon’s and each time found them massively more expensive. Swann were also good once but I haven’t found their quotes competitive either in recent years.

  8. It’s a real shame.I was with Suncorp before but switched to Insure my ride as they were 25% cheaper.

  9. I’m with famous insurance as they have over 40s discounts Ulysses discounts and gear cover that can include trailers.
    I also have a IMR. Policy on another bike that will probably go to them too.

  10. I’ve been trying to get out of an unhealthy relationship with a bank, the final link is finding a competitive insurer, which has been hard because they are actually very cheap. With that in mind, and with some time to go before I need to move from IMR, I called them for a quote.

    On my two bikes, for as similar as you can get, the first was 38% higher, but the second was 18% cheaper. When I added two cars, a discount spread across all vehicles and brought everything down a little more on the bikes and the car policies easily beat my current insurer (in the 11-14% range) which was a pleasant surprise.

    A couple of points I’ll make:
    – the guy I spoke to was very helpful
    – it was mentioned that these were prices for today but that when the time comes and Shannons make an offer based on my moving from IMR it may well be cheaper based on my “previous business with the group”.
    – I had to convince him I was a “motoring enthusiast”, not just a “vehicle user”. I’ve heard people say they’ve had to do that with Shannons, so they make sure they fit their target market. A bit amusing.
    – excess is up from $400 to $500
    – automatic gear cover, but my IMR policies had gear cover anyway so this is included in both comparison prices IMR/Shannons.
    – While my IMR policies took note of the fact that I can’t ride two bikes at once, the Shannons policy seemed to adjust this better, and (I suspect) understood I couldn’t drive either of my cars when I was riding a bike (etc etc).

    So – if Shannons do match the IMR price, it will be a no brainer. And according to Jake (above) they will be matching “current IMR pricing and excess’s in 99.9999999% of cases”, so that means they will be matching prices for 999,999,999 policies and only rejecting 1 (based on that percentage, and I doubt they will be writing a billion policies in Australia – ironic to make such a statement after calling 66% “stupid” !!!)

    We’ll see.

    Just remember – you are a “motoring enthusiast” – say it with gusto.

  11. Cant say Im surprised. Was with IMR and had two claims with them both of which I was not at fault and the service was terrible. No call back service even when you get through to someone, basic lack of care factor from operators. They branded themselves for motorcylists and prided themsleves that they were not a rebranded car insurance company but if you ever lodged a claim you would know that they were anything but that. Took weeks for repairs to be done first time around and even longer when bike declarded a right off.

    1. I have just had the unpleasant experience of dealing with IMR for a bike write -off. They have dragged their feet and only respond to calls when I made a formal complaint and demanded that someone call back or else i’d contact the ombudsman. This took over a month to be resolved after they had photo evidence of the damage.
      Now they are refusing to cover the riding gear!
      Glad they are gone.
      Budget insurance, budget attitude. For the rider? For your $$ more like it !

  12. I just insured my Yamaha comprehensively.

    The quote from insuremyride was $268. Yamaha Motor Insurance (they’re through Vero) was $349.

    Was the extra $81 worth it? For the extra dollars I got: $3000 gear insurance, new for old, genuine parts guarantee, a slightly higher cover (an extra $300), No excess for theft. No recovery/salvage fees.

    Seemed worth the extra to me.

    I think the best thing to do is take some time to ask insurance companies and negotiate. The $349 was not the original quote. The original was $489 but did have a lesser excess (250 instead of the now 500).

  13. I’m puzzled – since IMR is supposed to be a “budget” insurer.
    I obtained a quote from IMR 18mths-2yrs ago for my Goldwing, as it was up for renewal with Swann.
    IMR and Youi were over double the quote from Swann – so guess who got the business… sadly not long after that I was in a serious accident and wrote the bike off (and nearly myself). Thankfully Swann was brilliant to deal with and all went smoothly.
    Maybe I wasn’t in that 99.99% that was going to get the “competitive” quote. 🙂

  14. In fact i received my letter today. I was a bit disappointed as IMR premiums were competitive. When i read that the sister co Shannons was taking over my instant reaction was higher premiums. I have claimed through IMR, it was no fault claim. It was a seamless process and i was looked after well as the driver at fault had done a runner and IMR did all the chasing.
    Im fortunate, i fall within the cut off period so i will be taking it up.

  15. Like all three insurers, IMR YOUI; Shannon’s front of house is great and they have been my Vehicle insurer of choice for ten years now, but……
    These insurers have been swallowed up by Sun Corp., and that’s when it all started to go tits up.
    I just had a BMW damaged due to a driver at fault and with there only being one Beemer dealer in this state I opted to use my right to choose option for repair. Then my repairer sends me a message saying that they recently took a business decision to no longer take on quote or repair work with any insurer affiliated with Sun Corp.
    Problems stated are; slow at paying accounts out and prefference for using bodgey backyarders over your entitlement to choose a repairer of your choice.
    I guess we are all at the mercy of the big boys behind these insurers – just like we are with the three big banks in this country.

  16. I am a current IMR and YMI (Yamaha through Vero) client. No point commenting much on IMR because it’s going/gone. YMI a bit more expensive but better coverage and they did offer a $68 heavy duty chain lock as a sweetner with renewal which brought the IMR and YMI quotes into line dollar wise. My main reason for responding to this thread is the number of people praising and recommending QBE. Something I will never do, given my experience. 30 years ago I had a new Honda XBR 500 (single banger cafe racer style) insured for an agreed value of $4,000. A guy pulled out from a service station and stopped dead in front of me. I didn’t have time to even hit the anchors. 60 kph… wrote off the bike. I somersaulted through the air, landing eventually on the bonnet of the car… in pain but not much damage. QBE refused to pay anymore than $3,600 or market value. $400 was worth a lot more 30 years ago. Moral to the story. QBE may have dudded me on a legitimate claim and saved the company $400 but in the process it has lost 30 X $400 + in my business. Next year I’ll probably have 2 policies with YMI. Go whistle Dixie QBE I’m one very unhappy ex-customer!

  17. My motorbike got stolen recently, naively thought sitting under three cctv cameras would be a pretty straight forward claim, stressfree, processed a claim through IMY, slugged excess of $400 plus 160 premium deduction on red book value off a nearly new bike, basically get half a bike back, total scammers, glad they are closing. YUK

  18. Did a claim with IMR in the last 12 months – easy – all online with my supplied pictures. Bike came back mint. Shame as it was only costing me around $1 / day to have the bike insured with $1000 worth of gear cover.

Comments are closed.