Marketing Snowmobile Insurance to Outdoor Enthusiasts
Snowmobiling got its roots in rural and remote areas as a means of transportation. While people in those areas still use snowmobiles to get around, snowmobiling has also grown as a sport and hobby. It’s exhilarating to ride the trails with the cold wind grazing your face.
As enjoyable as snowmobiles can be, they carry risks. Just like cars, snowmobiles can cause accidents, injuries, and property damage. The snowmobile driver may be held responsible.
The risks of snowmobile riding have opened up new opportunities for brokers and agents to add a line of business to their existing products via cross-selling snowmobile insurance.
Why don’t snowmobile riders often purchase insurance? Usually it’s because it’s not required or they don’t think they need it.
Your clients may not mention they have one or more snowmobiles when you’re selling them some other type of insurance. Yet, by marketing to snowmobile enthusiasts and cross-selling, you can tap into this audience.
Shortcuts:
Who Are the Snowmobile Enthusiasts?
The Case for Snowmobile Insurance
What Insurance Coverages Do Snowmobilers Need?
Crafting the Right Marketing Message
Measuring Success in Snowmobile Insurance Marketing
Grow Your Snowmobile Insurance Base With Best Practices
Who Are the Snowmobile Enthusiasts?
Snowmobilers have a love of freedom, adventure, and the great outdoors. They enjoy interacting with nature and people. They’ll tell you it’s a great stress reliever, and it enhances their mental well-being.
Here are some interesting facts about snowmobiling that speak to how large this market is:
- According to the International Snowmobile Manufacturer’s Association (ISMA), snowmobile manufacturers sold 92,387 snowmobiles worldwide in 2025.
- Snowmobiling is often a social activity. There are more than 3,000 snowmobile clubs worldwide. These clubs raise more than $3 million for charity every year.
- People of all ages enjoy snowmobiling, but the average age of snowmobilers is 54.
- About half of snowmobile drivers ride their sleds at their home or vacation property. The other 50% of drivers trailer their sleds to parks or other areas.
- Snowmobiling is a common activity in the northern regions because of the abundance of snowfall.
- On average, snowmobilers spend around $2,000 every year on snowmobiles, equipment, and related expenses.
As an insurance agent or broker, you can offer snowmobilers protection for their sledding equipment and liability insurance to protect against accidents.
It’s easy to do, and you can typically make snowmobile insurance sales over the phone.
Ultimately, you’re selling peace of mind, so that snowmobilers can enjoy their craft without worry.
The Case for Snowmobile Insurance
Depending on where the sled driver lives, snowmobile insurance may not be a requirement. Only five states require snowmobilers to have liability insurance.
They include:
- New York
- North Dakota
- Pennsylvania
- South Dakota
- Vermont
Some parks and recreational areas also require snowmobilers to have liability insurance to ride the trails on their property.
Because of the risks associated with snowmobiling, every snowmobile driver should have liability insurance at a minimum, even if the law doesn’t require it.
What Types of Accidents Do Snowmobilers Have?
Even a minor snowmobile accident can cause serious injuries and property damage.
Here are some of the common snowmobile accidents drivers could experience:
- Rollover crash
- Accidents with people or other sleds
- Collisions with fences, trees, or objects hidden in the snow
- Fall from the machine
- Falling through ice
Accidents can be caused by poor visibility, reckless driving, inexperience, or substance use. Uneven ground also contributes to accidents. And just like with cars, accidents sometimes happen.
Snowmobiles are also prone to other types of risks, including cold-weather breakdowns and theft.
Injuries can be severe, including:
- Sprains and strains
- Facial injuries
- Broken bones
- Head or spinal cord injuries
- Traumatic brain injury
All of these incidents can be covered with snowmobile insurance.
What Insurance Coverages Do Snowmobilers Need? {#insurance}
Your clients may believe that after having a snowmobile accident, all they need to do is file a claim with their homeowner’s insurance. This is a misperception.
Most homeowner policies exclude accidents involving motorized vehicles. The insurance company won’t pay damages or defend the snowmobile owner in court.
The only way to ensure protection from a snowmobile accident is to have snowmobile insurance.
Snowmobile Coverage: Similar to Auto Insurance, but Different
In many ways, snowmobile insurance is much like auto insurance. Yet, snowmobile insurance is designed to cover the unique risks associated with this winter activity.
Snowmobile drivers need the following coverages:
- Liability: Pays for Injuries and property damage to others
- Medical payments: Pays for medical and funeral expenses for the driver and passengers regardless of fault
- Uninsured rider coverage: Pays for medical expenses and damages to the driver and passengers if the party responsible has no coverage or not enough coverage
While protecting against liability is of the utmost importance, drivers may also want to protect the investment they’ve made in their sleds and snowmobiling equipment with insurance.
Here’s a list of available coverages to protect snowmobiles and equipment:
- Collision: Coverage is available to protect sleds from damage caused by colliding with other sleds, trees, fences, hidden objects, ditches, and other stationary objects.
- Comprehensive: Coverage is available to cover incidents such as fire, theft, vandalism, falling objects, and hitting an animal.
- Equipment and Accessories: Coverage is available for helmets, custom parts, gear, and equipment.
- Towing: Coverage is available to tow immobile sleds or stuck sleds.
The right marketing messages for snowmobile insurance should include information about protecting drivers, passengers, and their sleds.
Crafting the Right Marketing Message
At the first sign of snow, snowmobilers start making plans to tune up their sleds and get out on the trails for a day of fun and adventure. They can’t wait to feel the crisp air biting their faces and snow spraying up around them. Snowmobiling is fun. It’s fast. It’s adventurous.
From an engagement perspective, your sales presentation should represent the joy of snowmobiling, as well as the risks and how to cover them.
The thought of getting into an accident is the furthest thing from your customers’ minds.
As an insurance broker or agent, risk is always top of mind. It’s part of your job to prepare your clients for the potential risks that may lie ahead for them.
A good way to express why buying snowmobile insurance is so urgent is by sharing a slide show to tell the story. You don’t even have to share it in person. You can share slides virtually and with ease.
The tone of your presentation should be adventurous, yet responsible.
Craft your storytelling message using the following steps:
- Create emotional appeal: Depict freedom, exhilaration, and adventure.
- Focus on the financial aspect of ownership: Show maintenance, trailering, and towing costs.
- Use “what if” scenarios: Display photos or videos of accidents.
- Share statistics: e.g., There was a 40% increase in snowmobiling fatalities from 2022 to 2023 in Michigan.
- Offer insurance as the solution: Demonstrate how insurance covers the problems they could encounter.
- Deliver a call-to-action: Ask for the sale and provide a link to an application.
By the time the presentation is over, you’ve made a sale. Your sale may lead to later conversations about home, auto, boat, umbrella, or business insurance.
Want to Reach Snowmobilers? Here’s Where to Start
How do you find snowmobile enthusiasts? It’s a matter of finding out where they hang out. Once you make some connections, you need to be able to talk about their sport or hobby.
There are four major manufacturers that make snowmobiles, including:
- Arctic Cat
- BRP
- Polaris
- Yamaha
You can turn yourself into a resource by learning about the snowmobile laws, snowmobile maintenance, and the local snowmobile clubs.
Outreach Activities for Reaching Snowmobilers
Snowmobilers are a tight-knit, passionate group. You’ll need to focus on outreach activities where they spend time online and in person. Here are four ways to grab their attention.
1. Social Media and Email Marketing
Social media ads are often effective because snowmobilers like to hang out on social media platforms. The snowmobile set likes to share trail updates, gear tips, photos, and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
As leads come in, you can add them to your email marketing plan to keep prospects engaged.
2. Website/Content
Leverage your website by adding landing pages for snowmobile insurance and posting content about snowmobiles. You could write about insurance coverages, risks, and claims. You could also write about beginner tips, storage options, customization, and more. Other topics to cover are insurance for passengers and rented sleds.
3. Partnerships
You might consider partnering up with outdoor gear retailers, snowmobile dealerships, or rental companies that are already entrenched with the snowmobiling community. They may offer opportunities for you to sponsor rallies, expos, or trail maintenance events.
4. Snowmobile Clubs and Winter Resorts
You may be able to arrange to give a presentation on snowmobile insurance to snowmobile club members or at an event at a winter resort.
Encourage them to learn more by inviting them to a virtual slide presentation as a follow-up.
Overcoming Common Objections
Each person has their own reasons for not wanting to buy snowmobile insurance. They may mistakenly believe that an accident would be covered under some other policy or that one would never happen. It’s also possible that in the excitement and anticipation of buying a sled and taking it for that first ride, they simply overlooked it.
When seeking leads for selling snowmobile insurance, you’ll likely get some objections about buying snowmobile insurance.
Regardless of the setting, always prepare to answer the common objections to purchasing a policy.
We’ve provided a list of common objections and how you can answer them confidently:
- I already have homeowner’s insurance: Clarify when a homeowner’s insurance policy will cover a claim and when it won’t.
- It’s too expensive: Compare the costs of medical bills and repair or replacement costs to the small amount they’ll pay in premiums.
- I only ride a few times a year: Even one accident can set someone back financially. You may also be able to offer seasonal or flexible coverage options to help offset the premium.
- I’m a safe rider: Share statistics showing the frequency of claims and the potential for high payouts.
- My sled is old and isn’t worth much: A snowmobile may not have much value, but the premium for insuring it may be small enough to consider purchasing it anyway. Liability is essential even if the sled owner doesn’t want to insure their equipment.
Answering objections may open up opportunities to engage the prospect further. It opens the door to other topics such as explaining the claims process, roadside assistance coverage, and discounts for bundling with other policies.
Measuring Success in Snowmobile Insurance Marketing
Success in snowmobile insurance sales goes beyond generating interest. The true measure of success lies in tracking meaningful results.
Here are some of the key performance metrics to track that will show how effective your marketing plan is:
- Lead generation
- Policy conversions
- Engagement at events
Compare results between digital marketing activities and in-person to learn where it makes sense to spend your marketing budget.
In building your snowmobile clientele, you’ll also want to dedicate some of your time to retention. At some point, your clients may allow their policies to lapse, which could leave them vulnerable to a lawsuit.
Grow Your Snowmobile Insurance Base With Best Practices
Selling snowmobile insurance can be fun and rewarding. It takes you out of the day-to-day routine of selling your regular lines of business, which makes your day interesting.
The reward is in knowing you’ve helped your clients operate their snowmobiles legally and safely. If the worst happens, they’ll know they chose the best insurance to cover the loss.
Successful selling comes with abiding by best practices for insurance sales. Know your audience and align your products to meet their needs. Choose the best communication channels to reach the widest audience and target the right audience.
While you may engage with prospects online or in person, they’re often more willing to give you their time to talk about snowmobile insurance if they can make a virtual appointment with you.
With CrankWheel, you can easily conduct a virtual follow-up appointment with new contacts. By sharing your slide show with our screen-sharing tool, customers can see your screen within minutes. There’s nothing for them to install or download. It’s simple to use, allowing you to get to the nuts and bolts of your presentation without delay.
Contact us today for a free trial of CrankWheel’s screen-sharing tool and experience how easy it is to increase your snowmobile book of business directly from your home or office.