More on Insurance

Following from our earlier post on insurance, readers will be pleased to know that we now have our insurance sorted. Ok, we know you don't really care, but if any of you are contemplating anything like the trip we have planned, read on. We mentioned that the "free" travel insurance offered if you pay for your travel by credit card has a few catches and that you really need to read the policy carefully. AIG, the company that provides the insurance for Westpac Bank would not alter their policy to accommodate us nor did an agent ever respond to us with an offer when we asked if we could buy a separate policy. After we used a broker to talk to them, AIG did finally agree to provide travel insurance but reduced the medical coverage because we are riding a motorcycle. Needless to say, we are not dealing with them. Many other companies we approached would not insure anyone who is riding a motorcycle with an engine size of more than 200cc - so be aware of this. Air New Zealand, via their insurers would cover us but at a cost of more than NZ$900 for less than 60 days. AA Insurance was the easiest to deal with but even then, the insurance cost us more than NZ$700.

Getting liability insurance in the US was even harder! Until we happened upon one company in Florida, we were despairing! No New Zealand insurer would provide cover in the US and a number of US insurers stated that they do not provide cover unless the rider holds a US issued drivers licence - which makes it pretty hard for tourists like us who are not hiring a machine from a commercial rental company.

Someone pointed us to Fernet Insurance Brokers USA - http://www.fernet.com - and these guys were great. Their website makes it pretty clear that one of the products they offer is exactly what tourists like us are looking for. We printed off the application form and faxed it to them and they came back within a couple of days with the cover approved. The lady we have been in contact with at Fernet - Phyllis - deserves a special mention. We'd love to meet her. Phyllis' email tone is wonderful and friendly. We had mentioned to her that we had this blog so she had a look and discovered we planned to venture into Canada. She immediately sent an email saying that a special certificate is needed for Canada and attached one to the email. Now that is service! In our opinion, if you want temporary insurance while in North America, contact Phyllis at Fernet. Thanks again Phyllis.

A Trial Pack Was Called For

Ric and Jenny on the Gold Wing

564 Flavours of Donut

One of the Vodafone advertisements claims there are 564 different flavours of donut. Now I know the last thing I need to add to my diet, however temporarily, is donuts but hey! a challenge is a challenge. Jenny and I reckon that if you can get all 564 flavours of donut anywhere, you can get them in North America and we figure that we'll need to eat, on average, 11.28 donuts per day of our trip if we are to sample them all. What we haven't figured out is how many hours at the gym we'll need to spend to work off each donut nor how much our new bike gear will be able to expand before the seams split, nor how much extra cash we'll need to pay for the extra fuel we'll burn carting around our donut bloated bodies.

Insurance - Read the Small Print

There may be a few countries on this planet where travel insurance is something you might consider dispensing with, but the USA is not one of them. Jenny and I used our credit card to book and pay for the travel and we have one of those cards where if you do that, you are provided with travel insurance as one of the benefits. We thought! When I read the 50 page (I kid you not) Travel Insurance Policy, I found, on page 37 (Part E: General Exclusions, Section 9 (f)), a little one liner that changed everything. It says that the Insurer (AIG, who provides the policy for Westpac bank) "..will not pay under any benefit ...claims arising directly or indirectly out of...motorcycling outside of New Zealand (unless you are riding a motorcycle with an engine capacity of 200cc or less and hold a licence ....)" etc. I called the companay and asked if they would modify this, given my clean record, 30 odd years holding a motorcycle licence and so on but to no avail. Strangely, I understand AIG is one of the biggest insurance companies in the world and is US-based so I'd have thought if anyone could provide the insurance cover they could. It appears not. Now, I already know that I can get insurance from other companies but as AIG (via Westpac) were offering it to us for "free" I thought I'd ask them. The lessons are old ones but worth repeating. First, read the fine print. In our case, one line in 50 pages made the policy virtually worthless for us and we could easily have missed it and headed to the northern hemisphere under the misapprehension that we were covered. Second, shop around. Two other quotes I received were almost $200 different in their premiums.

Where are We Going?

This is all about the journey, not the destination and we only have 2 months. We fly in to Los Angeles where will spend a couple of days before heading to Seattle, Washington to pick up the Gold Wing we will be using. From there we intend heading north into Canada so Jenny can see West Edmonton Mall and then we travel east. While we have friends we may meet up with in the Toronto area, and I'd like Jenny to see Boston and New York, we do not have any fixed itinerary. We will ride when we want to, where we want to. If we meet new friends who point out places we "must see" then we might just check those places out!

Ric has family in the Southern states but, if any of them are reading this, please do not be offended if we don't make it to your place.

We need to be back in Seattle to park up the Wing and then head home via Hawaii.

We do have to thank Chris, a fellow member of the New Zealand Gold Wing Riders who has generously let us use the Wing he keeps in Seattle. Thanks again, Chris.