Traffic
Insurance: Biker accidents more expensive than with drivers
Drivers often cause accidents than motorcyclists. However, the damage is lower on average, as the survey of an insurance is shown. Why is that?
With the motorcycle season, numerous bikers are on Germany’s roads again. R+V Versicherung’s statistics now published shows that motorcyclists are less likely to cause accidents than drivers, but cause higher damage.
“We paid an average of around 5,000 euros in 2024 for vehicle liability damage. With motorcycles, it was significantly more with 7,000 euros,” says Christian Hartrampf, car insurance expert at R+V in Wiesbaden. “This makes motorcycle accidents significantly more expensive than car accidents.”
At the same time, the insurance company was reported fewer accidents with motorcycles. Of 1,000 motorcycle owners, 6 reported liability damage. For comparison: on the other hand, 48 accidents came on 1,000 cars with the insurer’s liability. “This also has to do with the fact that motorcyclists are mainly on the road in the summer season and thus travel less kilometers than drivers,” it said. According to its own statements, the insurance of the cooperative financial group has insured around 2.4 million cars and 200,000 motorcycles.
According to the insurance, the most common cause of motorcycle accidents is that the driver lose control of the bike – for example, because they assess curves incorrectly or are on the move too quickly. “If other road users are affected, it will be expensive. At the same time, there are hardly any typical small damage such as parking bumper that reduce the damage average for motorcycles,” says Hartrampf. At the same time, the risk of injury in motorcycle accidents is particularly great: “Motorcyclists have no crumple zone,” said the expert.
According to preliminary data from the Federal Statistical Office, the police registered around 2.5 million traffic accidents in 2024, which is about 1 percent less than a year earlier. With 2.14 million accidents, it remained in property damage. The number of accidents in which people were injured or killed fell 1 percent to a good 289,000. Here 2,759 people were killed and a good 363,000 people were injured.
dpa
Source: Stern
