Will My Insurance Cover My Injuries From A Motorcycle Accident?

Whether your own insurance covers your motorcycle accident injuries depends entirely on which coverages you bought. California requires liability insurance for motorcycle operators, but it does not require personal injury protection or medical payments coverage, so many riders discover after a crash that their policy protects other people and not them. If another driver caused the collision, that driver’s liability coverage is the primary source of compensation. When the at-fault driver is uninsured, carries the state minimum, flees the scene, or denies fault, your own coverages become the difference between being made whole and absorbing the loss yourself. Attorney Damoun Yazdi at The Accident Network Law Group reviews every available layer of coverage for motorcycle accident victims throughout Southern California.

Key Takeaways

• California’s minimum liability limits under Vehicle Code Section 16056 are $30,000 per person, $60,000 per accident, and $15,000 for property damage, raised from $15,000 / $30,000 / $5,000 by SB 1107 effective January 1, 2025, and scheduled to rise again to $50,000 / $100,000 / $25,000 on January 1, 2035
• Medical Payments coverage (MedPay) is optional in California and pays your medical expenses regardless of fault, if you bought it
• Uninsured Motorist coverage applies when the at-fault driver has no insurance, and California law requires insurers to offer it, though it can be waived in writing
• Underinsured Motorist coverage is offset, not additive: under Insurance Code Section 11580.2 your insurer’s UIM exposure is your UIM limit minus what the at-fault side already paid
• Hit-and-run coverage under UM has strict conditions, including physical contact with the unidentified vehicle, a police report within 24 hours, and a sworn statement within 30 days
• Your health insurance covers treatment regardless of the fault dispute, but the plan will usually assert a reimbursement claim against any recovery

Your Motorcycle Policy Coverage

Liability Coverage

California requires motorcycle operators to carry liability insurance, and the required limits are the same as for any other motor vehicle: since January 1, 2025, $30,000 for injury to or death of one person, $60,000 for all persons injured in one accident, and $15,000 for property damage, under Vehicle Code Section 16056 as amended by SB 1107.

This coverage protects other people from you. It pays nothing toward your own injuries. If another rider or driver caused your crash, that person’s liability coverage is where compensation starts, and if they carry only the state minimum, $30,000 per person is often exhausted by the emergency department and the first surgery alone.

Medical Payments Coverage (MedPay)

MedPay is optional in California. It pays medical expenses for you and for a passenger on your motorcycle regardless of who was at fault, up to the policy limit, and it pays right away rather than waiting for the liability dispute to resolve. For a rider, that immediacy matters more than it does for a driver, because motorcycle injuries tend to generate large bills in the first 72 hours.

Many motorcycle policies do not include MedPay. Riders shopping on price often buy the minimum liability the law requires and decline the optional coverages, sometimes without realizing MedPay was offered. Attorney Yazdi recommends pulling your declarations page and confirming, in writing, which coverages you actually hold, because the agent’s recollection and the policy do not always agree.

Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage (UM/UIM)

Uninsured Motorist coverage protects you when the driver who hurt you has no liability insurance at all. Under Insurance Code Section 11580.2, a motorcycle can itself be an uninsured motor vehicle if it was subject to and failed to comply with California’s financial responsibility law, so UM reaches uninsured riders as well as uninsured drivers.

Underinsured Motorist coverage applies when the at-fault driver has insurance but not enough of it. This is the point most often misunderstood, and getting it wrong leads riders to expect money that is not there. California UIM coverage is offset rather than additive. Under Section 11580.2, subdivision (p), the insurer’s obligation does not exceed your underinsured motorist limit less the amount already paid to you by or for anyone who may be held legally liable. If you carry $100,000 in UIM coverage and the at-fault driver’s carrier pays its $30,000 minimum limit, your UIM claim is worth up to $70,000, not another $100,000. This is also why a rider whose UM/UIM limits merely match the state minimum has effectively no underinsured protection against a minimum-limits driver.

Hit-and-run and phantom vehicle claims carry conditions. UM coverage does reach a driver who cannot be identified, but Section 11580.2 imposes requirements that are easy to miss in the days after a crash. The bodily injury must have arisen out of physical contact between the unidentified vehicle and you or the vehicle you were occupying. The insured must report the accident to the police or the highway patrol within 24 hours, and must file a sworn statement with the insurer within 30 days stating the facts and that the injured person has a cause of action against an unidentifiable person. For riders this matters in a particular way: a driver who forces you off the road without ever touching your motorcycle may not satisfy the physical contact requirement, which makes independent evidence such as dashcam or surveillance video, and prompt reporting, critical.

California requires insurers to offer UM and UIM coverage, and you can decline or reduce it only by written agreement. Limits may be reduced by agreement but not below the financial responsibility minimums. If you never signed a waiver, you very likely have the coverage, and pulling the underwriting file is part of how Attorney Yazdi verifies that rather than accepting an adjuster’s characterization of the policy.

Your Health Insurance

Your health plan covers treatment for motorcycle accident injuries regardless of who was at fault and regardless of how long the liability dispute takes. Using it promptly is almost always the right decision, because delayed or interrupted treatment both harms your recovery and gives the other insurer its favorite argument for discounting the claim.

The tradeoff is reimbursement. Most health plans, and government programs such as Medicare and Medi-Cal, assert a right to be repaid out of a personal injury recovery for the accident-related care they funded. These claims are negotiable in many circumstances and the applicable rules differ by plan type. Attorney Yazdi handles that reimbursement negotiation as part of the case rather than leaving it for you to sort out after the settlement.

California Laws Relevant to Motorcycle Insurance Claims

• Vehicle Code Section 16056: minimum liability limits of $30,000 / $60,000 / $15,000 since January 1, 2025 under SB 1107, rising to $50,000 / $100,000 / $25,000 on January 1, 2035
• Insurance Code Section 11580.2: uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, the written waiver, the UIM offset, and the hit-and-run conditions
• Code of Civil Procedure Section 335.1: two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. Note that a contractual UM or UIM claim against your own insurer is governed by the policy’s own deadlines, which are often shorter, so it should never be left to the last month
• Vehicle Code Section 27803: a safety helmet meeting the required standard is mandatory for the operator and any passenger on a motorcycle, motor-driven cycle, or motorized bicycle on a highway
• Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975): California follows pure comparative negligence, so a rider who bears part of the responsibility still recovers, reduced by their own percentage of fault rather than barred

Contact The Accident Network Law Group About Your Motorcycle Coverage

Riders are routinely surprised by how many policies can be in play after a crash: the at-fault driver’s liability limits, your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage with its offset, MedPay, a resident relative’s policy in some circumstances, and your health plan with its reimbursement claim. Attorney Damoun Yazdi reads every declarations page in the file, looks for coverage riders did not know they had, and handles the health plan’s reimbursement claim as part of the representation. The coverage review costs you nothing, and our firm works on contingency under our No Recovery, No Fee policy.

We represent motorcyclists and their families from our offices in Costa Mesa, Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, Apple Valley, Victorville, and Bakersfield, and throughout Southern California. Se habla espanol.

Legal Disclaimer

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The outcome of any case depends on its specific facts and circumstances. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Contact The Accident Network Law Group for advice about your individual situation.