Motorcycles and the No-Fault Act: the coverage a rider is presumed not to have

A motorcycle is not a motor vehicle under Minnesota's No-Fault Act, and almost everything else follows from that. The legislature was so certain riders would misunderstand it that it wrote the warning into the statute and specified the type size.

Minnesota’s No-Fault Act was built around a category, and a motorcycle is outside it. That single fact produces most of the differences between what a rider’s claim looks like and what a driver’s claim looks like, and the legislature evidently expected riders to learn it the hard way — because it wrote the correction into the statute and specified the type size it has to be printed in.

The exclusion is written twice, in two different ways

The first exclusion is definitional. Minn. Stat. § 65B.43, subd. 2 defines the term the chapter is built on: “‘Motor vehicle’ means every vehicle, other than a motorcycle or other vehicle with fewer than four wheels, which (a) is required to be registered pursuant to chapter 168, and (b) is designed to be self-propelled by an engine or motor for use primarily upon public roads, highways or streets in the transportation of persons or property.” A motorcycle is out by name, and would also be out by wheel count.

The second exclusion closes the route a rider would otherwise have. A rider struck by a car is, in ordinary language, suffering loss arising out of the use of a motor vehicle — the car’s. Minn. Stat. § 65B.46, subd. 3 forecloses that reading:

For the purposes of sections 65B.41 to 65B.71, injuries suffered by a person while on, mounting or alighting from a motorcycle do not arise out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle although a motor vehicle is involved in the accident causing the injury.

The final clause is the operative one. It is not saying that no car was involved; it says the provision applies “although a motor vehicle is involved in the accident causing the injury.” And the exclusion is drawn around the rider’s position rather than the collision — “on, mounting or alighting from” — so it reaches a rider who has not yet moved.

The asymmetry that follows is easy to miss. Minn. Stat. § 65B.46, subd. 1 gives a right to basic economic loss benefits to “every person suffering loss from injury arising out of maintenance or use of a motor vehicle or as a result of being struck as a pedestrian by a motorcycle.” A person on foot struck by a motorcycle is inside the No-Fault Act by that express clause. The rider of the same motorcycle, in the same collision, is outside it by subdivision 3.

What a motorcycle owner is actually required to carry

Minn. Stat. § 65B.48, subd. 5(a) states the obligation, and the words it uses are narrower than the general requirement in subdivision 1:

Every owner of a motorcycle registered or required to be registered in this state or operated in this state by the owner or with the owner's permission shall provide and maintain security for the payment of tort liabilities arising out of the maintenance or use of the motorcycle in this state. Security may be provided by a contract of liability insurance complying with section 65B.49, subdivision 3, or by qualifying as a self insurer in the manner provided in subdivision 3.

The requirement is security “for the payment of tort liabilities,” and the cross-reference is to § 65B.49, subdivision 3 — the residual liability provision, which sets limits of “not less than $30,000 because of bodily injury to one person in any one accident and, subject to said limit for one person, of not less than $60,000 because of injury to two or more persons in any one accident,” plus “not less than $10,000” for property damage.

Compare that to the general requirement for a car. Minn. Stat. § 65B.48, subd. 1 requires an owner’s plan of reparation security to “provide for basic economic loss benefits and residual liability coverage in amounts not less than those specified in section 65B.49, subdivision 3, clauses (1) and (2).” Subdivision 5 asks for the residual liability half and stops.

The other mandates run the same way, and the reason is the same definition working three times over. Minn. Stat. § 65B.43, subd. 1 provides that its definitions apply “for the purpose of sections 65B.41 to 65B.71,” which is the whole Act. Subdivision 2 then excludes a motorcycle from “motor vehicle.” And the two mandates a car owner takes for granted are each written in terms of that word: § 65B.49, subd. 1 governs any “insurance policy providing benefits for injuries arising out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle” that is issued, renewed, continued, delivered, issued for delivery, or executed in this state “with respect to any motor vehicle registered or principally garaged in this state,” requiring that it provide basic economic loss benefits; and § 65B.49, subd. 3a(1) provides that “No plan of reparation security may be renewed, delivered or issued for delivery, or executed in this state with respect to any motor vehicle registered or principally garaged in this state unless separate uninsured and underinsured motorist coverages are provided therein.” Clause (2) repeats the subject: “Every owner of a motor vehicle registered or principally garaged in this state shall maintain uninsured and underinsured motorist coverages as provided in this subdivision.”

The notice the legislature wrote itself

Statutes rarely dictate the words of a consumer disclosure. This one does, and it dictates the type size as well. Minn. Stat. § 65B.48, subd. 5(b) provides that at the time an application for motorcycle insurance without personal injury protection coverage is completed, there must be attached to the application a separate form containing a written notice in at least 10-point bold type, if printed, or in capital letters, if typewritten, that states:

Under Minnesota law, a policy of motorcycle coverage issued in the State of Minnesota must provide liability coverage only, and there is no requirement that the policy provide personal injury protection (PIP) coverage in the case of injury sustained by the insured. No PIP coverage provided by an automobile insurance policy you may have in force will extend to provide coverage in the event of a motorcycle accident.

Two things follow from the existence of that paragraph. The first is substantive: the second sentence is the answer to the question riders most often ask, given in the statute’s own voice. The second is that the requirement is triggered by an application “for motorcycle insurance without personal injury protection coverage,” which means the Act contemplates that a motorcycle policy may include it. Nothing in § 65B.48, subd. 5 prohibits a rider from buying personal injury protection on a motorcycle policy; what it does is require the insurer to tell a rider who is not buying it what that means.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and the exclusion that surprises people

The general operation of these coverages, the notice a claimant must give before settling with the at-fault driver, and the 1989 amendment that changed how a claim is measured are all covered in the uninsured and underinsured motorist guide. Two provisions in Minn. Stat. § 65B.49, subd. 3a bear directly on a rider.

Clause (8) is the exclusion: the required coverages “do not apply to bodily injury of the insured while occupying a motorcycle owned by the insured.” A rider on their own motorcycle is outside the coverages that § 65B.49, subd. 3a requires on their car policies.

Clause (5) closes with a rule that reaches the same person in a different posture: “If at the time of the accident the injured person is not occupying a motor vehicle or motorcycle, the injured person is entitled to select any one limit of liability for any one vehicle afforded by a policy under which the injured person is insured.” That sentence, and clause (8), draw a line at the machine rather than at the person.

Definitions on the claim side are broader. Under Minn. Stat. § 65B.43, subd. 16 an “uninsured motor vehicle” is “a motor vehicle or motorcycle for which a plan of reparation security meeting the requirements of sections 65B.41 to 65B.71 is not in effect,” and under subd. 17 an “underinsured motor vehicle” is “a motor vehicle or motorcycle to which a bodily injury liability policy applies at the time of the accident but its limit for bodily injury liability is less than the amount needed to compensate the insured for actual damages.” Both definitions name motorcycles expressly, so an uninsured rider who causes a collision is an uninsured motor vehicle for the injured party’s purposes.

Where the tort threshold sits, and an unresolved question about it

The tort threshold guide sets out the five gates in Minn. Stat. § 65B.51, subd. 3. Whether they apply to a rider’s claim against a car driver is a question the two provisions do not answer together cleanly, and this page does not resolve it.

The threshold operates on “an action described in subdivision 1,” and subdivision 1 describes “a cause of action in negligence accruing as a result of injury arising out of the operation, ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle with respect to which security has been provided as required by sections 65B.41 to 65B.71.” A rider hit by an insured car satisfies that description on its face — the car is the motor vehicle, and security has been provided for it.

Cutting the other way, Minn. Stat. § 65B.46, subd. 3 provides that “For the purposes of sections 65B.41 to 65B.71” — a range that includes § 65B.51 — injuries suffered while on a motorcycle “do not arise out of the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle although a motor vehicle is involved in the accident causing the injury.” Subdivision 1 of § 65B.51 uses the phrase “arising out of the operation, ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle,” which is not word-for-word the phrase § 65B.46, subd. 3 addresses.

Both provisions are current, and the interaction is a question of statutory construction that depends on how a particular rider was injured. This page states the texts and stops there.

The rules of the road that apply only to motorcycles

Minn. Stat. § 169.974 governs operation, and it uses a definition that is not the No-Fault Act’s. Subdivision 1 provides that “Motorcycles as used herein shall mean the vehicles defined in section 169.011, subdivision 44,” and that subdivision states: “Motorcycle does not include (1) motorized bicycles as defined in subdivision 45, (2) electric-assisted bicycles as defined in subdivision 27, (3) a tractor, or (4) roadable aircraft.” The No-Fault Act’s definition at § 65B.43, subd. 13 does the reverse for the first of those, including “a motorized bicycle as defined in section 169.011, subdivision 45” within the word.

Two operating rules are worth reading in the original, because they bear directly on how a collision between a motorcycle and a car gets characterised.

Lane position first. Minn. Stat. § 169.974, subd. 5(i) provides: “Motor vehicles including motorcycles are entitled to the full use of a traffic lane and no motor vehicle may be driven or operated in a manner so as to deprive a motorcycle of the full use of a traffic lane.” Subdivision 5(j) adds that a person operating a motorcycle on a roadway “must be granted the rights and is subject to the duties applicable to a motor vehicle as provided by law, except as to those provisions which by their nature can have no application.”

Passing within a lane second. Subdivision 5(f) states the prohibition — no operating between lanes of moving or stationary vehicles headed the same way, no riding abreast of vehicles within the same lane, and no overtaking or passing another vehicle within the same lane — and then subdivision 5(g) supplies an exception with two numeric conditions:

A person may operate a motorcycle and overtake and pass another vehicle in the same direction of travel and within the same traffic lane if the motorcycle is operated:

(1) at not more than 25 miles per hour; and

(2) no more than 15 miles per hour over the speed of traffic in the relevant traffic lanes.

Subdivision 5(h) then removes four places from the definition of “traffic lane” for that purpose: the approach, drive-through, or exit of a roundabout; a school zone established under § 169.14, subd. 5a; a work zone where only a single travel lane is available for use; and an on-ramp to a freeway or expressway where vehicles are queued.

Headgear, eye protection, and what the evidence rules do not say

Minn. Stat. § 169.974, subd. 4(a) contains two requirements in one sentence, and only one of them is about age:

No person under the age of 18 shall operate or ride a motorcycle on the streets and highways of this state without wearing protective headgear that complies with standards established by the commissioner of public safety; and no person shall operate a motorcycle without wearing an eye-protective device.

Subdivision 2(d) adds a separate headgear requirement for anyone riding on an instruction permit, without regard to age, alongside prohibitions on carrying passengers and on riding at night.

One negative is worth stating precisely, because it is the mirror image of a rule that does exist for cars. Minn. Stat. § 169.685, subd. 4(a) bars proof of the use or failure to use “seat belts or a child passenger restraint system as described in subdivision 4a” from evidence in litigation involving personal injuries or property damage resulting from the use or operation of a motor vehicle. Those are the two things the subdivision names. Section 169.974 contains no comparable evidentiary provision of any kind. What that means for a particular case is a question of evidence law this page does not answer; what can be said is that the seat belt statute’s exclusion is written for seat belts and child passenger restraint systems, and is not a general rule about protective equipment.

What this page is not

It describes how Minnesota’s No-Fault Act classifies a motorcycle, what security a motorcycle owner is required to maintain, what the statute’s own prescribed notice says about personal injury protection, and which operating rules in chapter 169 apply to riders. It does not tell any rider what their policy covers, whether their claim clears the tort threshold, or how the interaction between § 65B.46, subd. 3 and § 65B.51, subd. 1 would be resolved on their facts. Those are questions about a specific policy and a specific collision.