Insurance, roadside assistance and excess

Every rental includes comprehensive cover on the motorcycle and 24/7 roadside assistance, wherever you ride. What stays on your side if the bike is damaged is the excess. This page sets out what it covers, what it costs, how to bring it down — and the few situations where it does not apply at all. Three minutes of reading that spare most bad surprises.

1. Dropping the bike at a standstill happens — and it adds up

It is by far the most common minor incident: a foot slipping on gravel, a manoeuvre with cold tyres, the bike quietly going over on its side. Nothing dramatic, and most of the time the damage stays limited.

What you need to know is that a recent motorcycle has no small parts. Depending on what hit the ground — the exhaust system in particular — the bill climbs fast and goes well beyond what you would guess by looking at the bike. Let’s be straightforward: a drop, even at walking pace, almost always reaches the full excess. That is not cautious wording, it is what the repair quotes show. Hence the capped damage liability, and hence the fact that we pre-select it for you.

2. The excess, and how to bring it down to €600

The excess is the share of the damage that stays with you. It depends on the machine, from €1,500 to €3,000: the more powerful the bike and the more expensive it is to put right, the higher it is. The amount that applies to your rental is shown on the bike’s page, in the booking summary and in the contract.

The capped damage liability option stops your share at €600 on any bike. Its price follows the machine — €15 per day on bikes available with an A2 licence, €19 on A-licence bikes, €30 on the BMW M 1000 RR. Put simply: without it, damage is charged to you at its real cost, up to the machine’s excess; with it, your share stops at €600. It is the only way to cap your exposure, and the best peace-of-mind-per-euro on the rental.

You tick it when booking, at the “Your extras” step. It can also be added on the day, before the keys change hands.

3. One excess applies per claim, not per rental

This rule is not specific to our agency: our insurer’s policy states that the excess “applies to any claim” engaging the damage cover, and that where several covers are engaged, the corresponding excesses add up.

4. The card pre-authorisation stays at the full amount

At handover we take a card pre-authorisation (never charged) equal to the bike’s full excess — €1,500, €2,000 or €3,000 depending on the category, as in the table above. That amount does not change if you have taken the capped-liability option.

This is not a contradiction: the cap applies to damage covered by the insurance. There are situations where the cover does not apply at all, and where the whole cost is due with no €600 cap. The main ones, as set out in our insurance and rental terms:

• Riding under the influence of alcohol at a level constituting an offence, or use of narcotics;
• refusing to submit to testing or to the checks intended to establish it;
• improper use of the motorcycle: sporting use, track, competition, subletting, carrying passengers for payment;
• riding by anyone other than the named rider on the contract, or without a valid licence;
• theft made possible by carelessness — in particular theft occurring while the keys were left on or in the motorcycle, expressly excluded by our policy; theft is only covered where the steering lock or the required security devices have been forced;
• failing to stop after an accident and, more broadly, any wrongful conduct.

The full-amount pre-authorisation is therefore the normal counterpart of those cases. In the usual course of a rental, it is released on return without ever having been charged.

Set the pre-authorisation up before you come to the shop

The pre-authorisation is taken online, before you arrive. That is the moment to check with your bank that the amount will go through: many cards carry a payment or authorisation ceiling that blocks a hold of €1,500 to €3,000, and raising it takes a few minutes from your banking app or your online banking area — usually without calling anyone.

The ceiling has to be available independently of your account balance. A pre-authorisation uses up your payment ceiling, not the money sitting in the account: having the funds available is not enough if the ceiling has already been eaten into by the month’s spending. Check both, and raise the ceiling if needed. Done the day before, it takes a few minutes; done at the counter on the morning of departure, it can cost you the rental.

5. 24/7 assistance, included in every rental

Breakdown, accident, puncture, flat battery, theft: assistance is included, day and night, weekends and public holidays, in France and in the countries covered by the green card. It is provided by IMA on behalf of the Mutuelle des Motards, who insure our motorcycles.

6. Your bank card almost certainly will not cover you

Many riders count on the “rental vehicle” cover that comes with their premium card. On a car it often works. On a motorcycle, hardly ever: the policies define the insured vehicle as a four-wheeled vehicle, which rules out two-wheelers by construction — not through a hidden exclusion, but through the very definition of what is covered.

We read the policies currently in force for the main cards on the French market:

Sources: Notice Carte Visa Premier 01/2024 and Notice Carte Visa Infinite (CCF), p. 8; Gold Mastercard and World Elite Mastercard policies (Crédit Agricole); Certificate of Rental Vehicle Insurance, Chubb European Group SE for American Express Carte-France, policy no. FRDAFY00132109.

Three further limits apply, even for a car, and often catch people out: the rental must have been paid with the card, the incident must occur more than 100 km from your home, and the number of claims is capped (two per 365-day period with several insurers).

What to take from this: check your policy before you leave rather than after a fall. If it expressly covers two-wheelers, so much the better. If not, the capped-liability option is the only protection you can actually rely on.

7. If you drop the bike or have an impact

• Get yourself to safety, then tell us. Every bike is tracked and fitted with a fall detector: we are often alerted before you call.
• Photograph the damage on the spot, from several angles, before the bike is moved.
• Report it within 24 hours (article L113-2 of the French Insurance Code). A late report puts the cover at risk.
• In case of theft or attempted theft, file a police report: without it, the insurer will not pay out.

This page summarises our rental terms and those of our insurers for information. Where they differ, only the general rental terms and the insurer’s own policy prevail: Mutuelle des Motards and FMA (Suzuki GSX-8S and BMW M 1000 RR). Updated 08/08/2026.