Galveston
Motorcycle Insurance

One Week of Crowds, Fifty-One of Salt

Galveston’s riding year has two distinct shapes. During rally season the island absorbs an enormous number of bikes, and the exposure is almost entirely about density: Seawall Boulevard at walking pace, riders three deep in intersections, bikes parked in rows where a single tip-over becomes four, and a great many visiting riders navigating unfamiliar streets in heavy traffic. Almost none of that produces high-speed crashes. It produces a steady volume of low-speed damage and the occasional serious injury, and it means your liability limit is being asked to work in a crowd. The other fifty-one weeks are a slower and less obvious problem. Salt air is relentless on a motorcycle — chrome, fasteners, electrical connectors, brake and exhaust hardware — and it works on a bike parked in a carport just as effectively as on one ridden along the seawall. Corrosion is not a covered peril anywhere; it is deterioration, and no policy pays for it. That distinction is worth stating clearly, because the coverage that does matter on the island is comprehensive, which answers for the storm damage, flooding and theft that a coastal address genuinely produces.