About ATV Insurance
Modern ATV insurance grew alongside the machines themselves. When Honda's US90 three-wheeler hit U.S. shores in 1969, farm cooperatives urged carriers to treat the new machines more like utility tractors than toys, so underwriters reworked motorcycle forms to account for towing and payload use.1
Regulators accelerated that change in 1988 when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission brokered a consent decree halting three-wheel production and requiring safety messaging, prompting insurers to scrutinize rider age, horsepower, and training before binding coverage on high-powered quads.2
Through the 1990s and early 2000s, more trail systems and lenders demanded proof of liability insurance, while national carriers rolled out recreational vehicle packages that marry bodily injury, property damage, medical payments, and custom parts endorsements for both youth models and workhorse side-by-sides.3
Today's ATV policies routinely bundle towing, accessory, and guest passenger provisions so a single renewal can protect farm chores, hunting trips, resort rentals, and snowplow duty, all tailored to the machine's value, terrain, and storage routine.4 CPSC's May 20, 2025 OHV report still attributes more than two-thirds of recent off-highway fatalities to ATVs, which keeps liability, medical, and accessory coverage near the top of every underwriting checklist.5
Coverage Highlights
Trail rides, farm chores, resort rentals, and side-by-side road crossings demand coverage that flexes with each environment. Core protections typically include:
- Liability & Guest Passenger: Pays for bodily injury and property damage you cause on private land, club trails, or county roads that allow ATVs, including guest passengers in multi-seat rigs.1
- Comprehensive & Collision: Repairs or replaces the machine after theft, rollover, fire, or a collision with another vehicle or tree, covering everything from race-tuned long-travel rigs to youth quads strapped to a trailer.2
- Custom Parts & Performance Mods: Extends limits to winches, tracks, plows, beadlock wheels, radios, and lighting kits so aftermarket upgrades are reimbursed after a covered loss rather than capped at basic accessory limits.3
- Transport & Storage Protection: Applies while loading, unloading, or hauling the ATV, and can extend to barns, enclosed trailers, or winter storage units in case of fire, theft, or storm damage.4
- Medical Payments & Uninsured Motorist:Provides quick access to treatment for you and your guests even when the at-fault rider or pickup driver lacks sufficient coverage, filling gaps left by personal health plans.5
- Riding Apparel, Recovery, & Safety Gear:Reimburses helmets, boots, navigation devices, and communications gear damaged during a covered loss and may include towing or limited search-and-rescue benefits in remote terrain so you are not eating the cost of protective gear replacements.6