ATV and UTV Insurance: What Your Auto Policy Won't Touch

Riding season is here. Around here, four-wheelers and side-by-sides are everywhere — trails, farms, hunting camps, work property. The Mountain State has one of the highest per-capita rates of off-road vehicle ownership in the country.

But here's a conversation we have weekly: someone wrecks their UTV, calls in to file a claim, and finds out their auto policy and homeowners policy both decline it.

Don't be that person.

Auto policies cover *highway vehicles* — vehicles you can register and tag for road use. ATVs and UTVs are off-road by classification. Even if you put a road kit on a side-by-side, your auto carrier didn't write a policy for that machine.

Once you leave the pavement, the only thing your auto policy *might* extend is liability while towing the trailer down the road — and that's only on the trailer, not the machine itself.

Most homeowners policies have a hard exclusion for motorized recreational vehicles. There's sometimes a scrap of coverage if you're using it strictly on your own property — but the moment you ride it across the road to your neighbor's, the coverage drops.

And homeowners never covers physical damage to the ATV itself. Burn the engine, flip it on a trail, sink it in a creek — that's out of your pocket.

A dedicated policy is usually more affordable than people expect:

• Physical damage on the machine — collision, theft, vandalism, flipping over
• Liability if you hit someone, damage their property, or someone gets hurt on your machine
• Medical payments for passengers
• Custom equipment — lift kits, winches, sound systems, light bars — usually with a separate accessories limit
• Optional roadside if you break down miles from the trailhead

Premiums for a typical UTV run a couple hundred dollars a year. Sport quads usually less. Compared to the $15,000-$30,000 these machines cost new, it's nothing.

• A kid takes the four-wheeler out, hits a tree, breaks the front end and a leg. With no policy, you're paying for both the machine *and* the medical bills.
• A neighbor's kid rides yours and gets hurt. Your homeowners *might* extend liability if the ride was strictly on your property — but if it crossed a road, you could be on the hook personally.
• Your UTV gets stolen out of the garage. Homeowners covers contents up to your sub-limit — usually nowhere near the replacement cost of the machine.

Riding this summer? Give us a call at our Point Pleasant office before you head out. A 10-minute policy review is a lot cheaper than finding out at the worst possible moment that nobody's writing the check.

*This is general information, not specific advice for your situation. Every policy is different.*