In short
- The bonus-malus is a coefficient starting at 1 that multiplies your reference premium. It drops 5% for every claim-free year and rises 25% for every at-fault accident.
- The floor is 0.50, a maximum 50% discount. Once reached, the coefficient cannot fall further.
- After an at-fault claim, the coefficient returns to 1 after two years with no new at-fault accident.
- Mopeds and light motorcycles are excluded from the statutory system. A 50cc or a 125 falls outside the regulatory coefficient, even though an insurer may apply its own scale.
- The coefficient follows the rider, not the bike. The annual information statement proves it to any insurer.
The bonus-malus is the most discussed mechanism in French motorcycle insurance and one of the least well understood. It gets credited with effects it does not have, a large slice of the two-wheeler fleet is widely assumed to be covered when it is not, and the statutory coefficient is routinely confused with an insurer’s commercial discounts. Here is what the rule actually says, with the figures.
The calculation in one table
| Situation | Effect on the coefficient | Calculation |
|---|---|---|
| One claim-free year | -5% | coefficient × 0.95 |
| One at-fault accident | +25% | coefficient × 1.25 |
| An accident with shared responsibility | +12.5% | coefficient × 1.125 |
| A non-fault accident | none | coefficient unchanged |
| Two claim-free years after a malus | back to 1 | fast-track rule |
| Floor reached | 0.50 | cannot fall further |
The resulting coefficient is rounded down to two decimal places. A rider at 0.76 who completes a claim-free year lands at 0.72, not 0.722.
How the coefficient is calculated, year by year
When the first policy is taken out, the coefficient is 1. The premium paid is exactly the reference premium the insurer has calculated for that rider and that machine.
Each claim-free year multiplies the coefficient by 0.95. The first year takes it to 0.95, the second to 0.90, the third to 0.85. The mechanism is multiplicative rather than additive, which is why the reduction slows down over time.
The maximum reduction is set at 50%, a coefficient of 0.50. Reaching it takes thirteen claim-free years. From that point the coefficient stops falling, whatever happens next.
This is the part many riders miss: past the floor, another claim-free year adds nothing to the coefficient. The only remaining lever on the premium is the policy itself, its level of cover and its options, which brings you back to the trade-off between third-party and comprehensive cover.
What pushes the malus up
Every at-fault accident multiplies the coefficient by 1.25. A rider at 0.80 who causes an accident moves to 1; one sitting at 1 moves to 1.25.
Where responsibility is shared between the riders involved, the increase is halved to 12.5%, a coefficient multiplied by 1.125.
An accident in which your liability is not engaged has no effect at all. This is a common source of confusion: being involved in a claim and being responsible for it are two different things, and only the second counts.
Two safeguards exist. The first is the fast-track rule: the coefficient returns to 1 as soon as two consecutive years pass without an at-fault accident, even after several claims. The second protects the best records, a rider who has held a coefficient of 0.50 for at least three years takes no malus on a first at-fault accident.
The two-wheelers the law leaves out
This is the blind spot on the subject, and it covers a large share of the fleet. The bonus-malus system applies to most motor vehicles, but the French public service explicitly excludes several categories, two of which concern two-wheelers directly:
- the moped, meaning the 50cc;
- the light motorcycle, meaning the 125.
Light and heavy motor quadricycles are excluded too, as are classic vehicles over thirty years old.
In practice, a 50cc scooter or a 125 does not fall under the regulatory coefficient. That does not mean rider behaviour has no effect on the price: an insurer remains free to apply its own discount and surcharge scale on those policies. But it is no longer the statutory mechanism, the rules differ between companies, and the answer sits in the policy wording rather than in an assumption. The point matters most for a young rider on a 125, who often discovers the nuance only when switching insurer.
The coefficient follows the rider, not the machine
The bonus-malus attaches to the person. It follows you when you change motorcycle, when you own several, and when you change company.
That is what makes switching insurer possible without starting from scratch. The new insurer takes the coefficient as it appears on the information statement; it does not recalculate it and cannot wipe it.
Carrying a car bonus over to a motorcycle policy
The question comes up constantly among riders who also drive. There is no automatic statutory transfer between a car policy and a motorcycle policy, and practice depends on the insurer.
Some two-wheeler specialists will take account of the record built up on a car policy when pricing the motorcycle one, and the other way round. AMV, an insurer specialising in two-wheelers, addresses this specific case in its documentation. It is worth raising at the point of sale, information statement in hand, rather than discovering it afterwards.
What happens if you stop insuring
Selling your motorcycle without replacing it interrupts the policy, and the length of that gap changes everything.
Under three months, and provided no at-fault claim occurred during the year, you still receive the 5% improvement when the next policy starts.
Beyond three months you keep the coefficient you held before the interruption. The nuance is that the insurer may decide to treat you as a new rider if the gap has been very long. No cut-off duration is fixed by regulation here; it is the company’s judgement call.
Where to find your coefficient
The reference document is the relevé d’information, the annual information statement. Your insurer issues it every year at policy renewal.
It states the current coefficient and lists at-fault claims over the five preceding annual periods. It is the only document a new insurer asks for, and it is also how you check that no claim has been recorded against you in error.
Which insurer when you have a bonus, or a malus
The coefficient is only a multiplier. What it multiplies, the reference premium, varies widely between companies depending on the model, declared claims history, where the bike is kept, the level of cover and how long you have held your licence.
That is where the choice of insurer weighs more than the coefficient itself, particularly for profiles that generalists price badly: large capacity bikes, sports models, and riders coming out of a malus period. AMV, a two-wheeler specialist since 1974, reports over a million policyholders and a 4.7 out of 5 rating on Avis Vérifiés, with more than 350 advisers based in Bordeaux and four progressive levels of cover running from third-party liability to fully comprehensive.
For a wider view of what the market offers, our comparison of the best motorcycle insurance sets out the selection criteria beyond the headline price.
Source: Service-Public.fr, factsheet F2655 “Bonus-malus (assurance automobile)”, consulted 24 August 2026.