Sam:

Over the past 10 years, I've bought insurance from both Motorcycle Express and MotoTouring. I used to buy it from ADAC in Germany before their rates went up - then I shifted to MotoTouring. I'll probably buy from the Bulgarian company next year. I have a Canadian (Ontario) plated ST1100 that I ship back and forth to Europe.

You raised a question about the difference between the coverage from Motorcycle Express and the others. Basically, it's like this: Motorcycle Express covers just about every country between Iceland and Iran. There might be one or two exceptions in former Yugoslavia - you will need to check with them to be sure. What countries get excluded varies from year to year, depending on who is having a war, who is under sanctions, etc.

The other companies - Knopf, ADAC, MotoTouring, the Bulgarian company, et al, write policies that are primarily marketed to non-EC residents who live around the periphery of the EC (for example, residents of Ukraine, Turkey, North Africa, etc.) who want to drive their vehicles into the EC. Hence, the area covered by these policies is limited to the EC (plus Switzerland). Commercially, this is easy to do because there are common liability insurance requirements throughout the EC, similar to how there are common liability insurance requirements between all the Canadian provinces and all the American states (your 'pink insurance slip' covers you for all of the USA and Canada).

What you need to do is decide what coverage you need - just the EC (plus Switzerland), or all of Eastern Europe and North Africa. If you only need the former, then get the cheapest policy you can get. A 'EC Green Card' the same, no matter who you get it from, you get exactly the same coverage on exactly the same paper form. If you plan to travel in countries outside of the EC, you have a choice of either buying the more expensive Motorcycle Express policy, which covers far more countries; or, buying a EC only 'green card' policy and then buying supplemental coverage (typically at the border) for whatever non-EC countries you are planning to enter.

If you plan to do more than just one non-EC country, it is probably most trouble-free to buy the Motorcycle Express policy. If you only plan to do one non-EC country, it may or may not be cheaper to buy specific-country coverage for that country at their border. For example, I went from Switzerland to Turkey and back this past fall - during the same period that the policy shown below was valid - and bought coverage for Turkey (a non-EC country, notice the X through 'TR' in the policy below) for about CAD $30 at the Turkish border.

ALL of these insurance policies (Motorcycle Express, all the 'EC only ones', and even the single-country ones you buy at the border) are usually issued on identical looking forms. Typically, all the forms are green. The forms will usually have country codes for just about everywhere you could possibly drive to from Western Europe, and the countries that are not covered by any one policy will have a big X through them.

The trick is to buy only the coverage you need. Because everyone's coverage (for basic liability) is identical - inside or outside of the EC - consider it to be a fungible commodity, like gasoline or flour or rice - buy your liability insurance only on the basis of price and reputation of the vendor for service, because the commodity being sold by everyone - the insurance policy itself - is identical in every respect (except, of course, for the number of countries covered). You won't ever need to worry about making a claim, because it is bare-bones liability coverage only, which means that it's the guy or girl you hit who has to worry about getting paid.

You could, if you wish, buy both liability and theft/collision coverage from Motorcycle Express. That is quite expensive, but it protects your motorcycle. I used to do that when my moto was new - I don't bother any more. I once made a claim on the collision coverage, and it was handled promptly, fairly, and with excellent service all around.

Below is an image of a policy paper (the famous 'green card'). Note that some of the country codes are crossed out. That is because this policy (from MotoTouring) only covers the EC + Switzerland. If you bought from Motorcycle Express, it would look identical except fewer countries would be crossed out.

Michael