Should You Insure Your Go-Kart? (Insurance Explained)

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Go-kart insurance is a topic that isn’t often discussed by many kart owners, but it’s an important one to consider. Whether you’re a beginner driver, or if you’ve got years of experience under your belt, you may be wondering if you should insure your go-kart.

You should insure your go-kart if you can, as damage on your kart is inevitable. However, it can be difficult to insure a kart because of this. Motorsport is high risk and dangerous, which can make it difficult and expensive to get suitable karting insurance.

Insurance in the karting world is mostly focused on karting circuits that rent their karts out to clients. However, there are ways that you can insure your go-kart, and I’ll take a closer look at these below.

Should I Insure My Kart?

It’s always a good idea to have some insurance for your kart, especially if you are competing with it. Competitive karting requires you to use your kart and all its constituent parts to its performance limits, leading to excessive wear and tear and damage risk. It also means potential wheel to wheel contact, and a broken bumper or bent steering column is a common sight at a karting track on a race weekend.

These might not be as expensive as a blown engine, but this damage still takes away from your budget when it comes to restocking your consumables, such as tires and fuel. Plus, if you happen to have a bigger accident, having insurance may allow you to get some financial support to rebuild your kart.

Not Insuring Your Kart Can Be Expensive

Accidents can happen even during non-race weekend practice sessions. While I was still racing junior karts, I was doing some pre-season testing and I was still yet to partake in my first race. I was friends with one of the older guys who was running in the DD2 class. He made one small mistake and went straight into the barriers.

That one small mistake on a testing day cost him almost $1,000 in damage repairs and a lot of rebuild hours.

What I am trying to illustrate is that it doesn’t matter what your experience level is, or whether you are just testing or actually racing. Accidents do happen, and they can be expensive! So, insurance is always good to have.

Away From The Track

Even off the track, your kart is not always safe. What if it gets stolen? What if it’s damaged in a fire? There are so many factors to take into account, which is why another important thing to consider is safely storing and securing your kart (both are especially important as it’s hard to prove you own a go-kart if it’s stolen).

Insurance Companies For Go-Karts

Some auto and RV insurance companies do cover some karts as well, but they’re few and far between. You need to consider which country you live in as it largely varies by region, and if you are in the United States, it also differs from state to state.

The problem with insuring karts lies in the fact that they are not registered. Most automotive insurance policies typically cover registered vehicles. In other words, road legal cars. Racing karts are not road legal, and therefore have no need to be registered.

This means that racing karts cannot be covered by most insurance companies. However, if you have an off-road kart that is road legal, they might be easier to get coverage for.

How Can I Insure My Racing Kart?

There are a few companies that insure racing karts. However, once again it all depends on where you are. If karting is popular in your area, you might be in luck. I have come across some insurance companies in Australia and New Zealand specifically covering karting. They cover the following:

  • Collisions between karts
  • Injury
  • Malicious or accidental damage

These are the main factors you should take into account when looking to insure your kart. Make sure that they cover these fundamental areas. The high risks involved in motorsport make it difficult to insure karts, as crashing is essentially just part of the game. Your best bet may be to look at companies that also insure race cars and see if they have cover for karting too.

KEY POINTS

• You should insure your go-kart if you can

• Ideally you should get cover for both on-track and off-track incidents

There aren’t many companies out there that offer karting insurance

Alternatives To Go-Kart Insurance

Sponsorships

Having a sponsor to assist you with your karting finances will be a huge help. You can estimate a maintenance budget to add to your package and set this money aside as a type of insurance for your kart. If your kart is damaged in any way, you take the money from this fund to repair any damage.

Sponsors may be reluctant to give you damage insurance in the form of money. Some drivers may have product sponsors instead, and these sponsors do not provide financial assistance. Instead, they give the driver free products or services they would normally provide for a fee.

For example, if you get sponsorship from a small car repair shop, they might provide you with some tools, parts or cleaning supplies in return for some exposure on the track. These kinds of sponsorships can help fill in the gap if you don’t manage to get dedicated karting insurance.

Personal Savings

Building up your savings is always useful to be able to create your own makeshift insurance fund. Have a savings account just for your kart, and deposit a set amount of money into this account every month.

Use these funds to repair any damage to your kart or to buy any necessary tools and supplies. Having a constantly growing balance just for your kart will mean that you know what you can afford and what you can’t afford, and it can act as a kind of insurance fund for when things go wrong.

Karting Medical Insurance

Medical insurance is just as crucial as your kart’s insurance when it comes to racing. Having very limited safety features, karting accidents can result in serious injuries. It is always important to have the option to go to a doctor or a hospital if necessary. Make sure that your medical insurance can cover you if something does happen at the circuit.

5 Tips To Keep Your Kart Safe

1. Lock It Up

Unlike cars, karts are completely open and do not require keys to run. If your kart is not locked away, it can easily be stolen by simply driving it away. Always make sure you have your storage unit locked.

2. Remove The Battery

Remove the battery from the kart to immobilize the engine. Karts are still light though, and can be carried easily, so the most important safety tip is keeping your storage unit locked.

3. Keep A Fire Extinguisher On Hand

Always keep a fire extinguisher close to your kart. Any area that has flammable liquids and hot engines has a higher risk of fires breaking out. Having a fire extinguisher close by can help you save those precious seconds that could make the difference to losing your whole kart or just losing a little bit of plastic on the bumper.

4. Keep Your Kart At The Track

If possible, try to store your kart at the track. Most karting tracks have cages in garages in which you can lock your kart. This will save on the risk factor when transporting your kart. Plus, there are normally some extra security measures in these storage units, such as CCTV.

5. Get A Good Trailer

If you do feel safer keeping your kart at home, make sure that you have a proper trailer that you can transport your kart in. The last thing you want is to have your kart damaged in the process of taking it to the track or back home.

Final Thoughts

Kart insurance can be difficult to find for various reasons. Motorsport is high risk, and karts are damaged all the time due to the wheel to wheel nature of the racing. This is normally enough to discourage most insurance companies from offering coverage, but it’s usually worth it if you can get it.