Guide discussion: Bicycle insurance

Anthorn

Highly surprised that ETA (Environmental Transport Association) is not mentioned in the recommendations. They provide an all-in policy including things that others charge extra for such as Public Liability, Accident, even roadside assistance as well as the usual theft.
https://www.eta.co.uk/insurance/cycle/

Re locking the bike by both wheels to a railing mentioned in the article, it all depends on where the lock is placed on the wheel: If the lock is placed around the rear wheel in the triangle formed by the seat post and the struts and around an immoveable object, the only way to take the bike is to break the lock or cut through the rear wheel! So effectively by only locking the rear wheel the frame is locked too.

Careful with insured bikes using the above method though. Insurance companies demand the lock placed around the frame and locked to an immoveable object.

[Deleted User]

olly300 wrote: »

I've always been advised by police and those who work in security to lock a bike individually if it is in a communal area, garden shed or separate out building.

Yes, I always do......except when there's nothing to lock it to. I was just curious whether the insurance would pay out, but it wasn't a scenario that had occurred to them.

derekPrivate

I am shortly going to Tenerife and hiring a bike (to cycle up Mt Tiede). The bike I will be hiring will be an expensive road bike (approx £3000 value). The hire shop does not offer bike hire insurance. Are there any companies that would offer damage/theft insurance ONLY for a hire bike. My travel insurance covers 3rd party and injury etc, but does not cover theft or damage to a hired bike. I will be hiring the bike for 3 days, so do not need anything longer than that.

Thanks

Superscrooge

'Yellow Jersey' do 5 day bike cover. As far as I know they cover hire bikes, but you would need to check?

https://insurance.yellowjersey.co.uk/product/bicycle

It's a good climb up Mt Tiede - Enjoy!

Andrews002

Checked MSE for bike insurance and as they've requested feedback, here it is:  chose the first of two comparison sites at the bottom of the bicycle insurance page, the CycleInsurance comparison site - bought a policy with Eversure.  Whole process really easy and clear text so you know what kind of locks / home security you need so that you don't nullify your insurance.

SDicki

The price checking sites suggested are all good for getting initial names but the prices increase by around 50% when I add in all the additional items required.  Great starter for ten though in checking

Paulinej24

Not mentioned is that members of national bodies get discounts on all sorts of cycle related things, plus all members have liability insurance to cover any injuries or damage caused by you in an accident. You also support an organisation that develoos and campaigns on behalf of cycling. Examples are Cycling UK and British Cycling.

wake≈turbulence

MSE asked for feedback on their listed bicycle insurance quotation sites.  Perhaps the first thing to say is that bicycle insurance can be a tricky thing to assess, something of a judgement challenge.  Relatively inexpensive bicycles may not be economical to insure. 

MSE mentioned an expensive bicycle and considering the excess that only applies once of course plus the premium over say 10 years collectively are likely to leave you with at least some residual cash positive outcome when you need to claim, so do the calculation. 

Back to a cheap bike, which may be worth insuring in year one, but increasingly becomes uneconomical to insure, so by year 2 or 3 your excess plus collective years of insurance premiums have cost you more than the cost of a new bike, so that calculation is a judgement issue. 

Next comes what to do to meet the terms of insurance at home and away from home, so if you leave your front door open in summer to let a breeze travel through your home and someone takes your unlocked bike, will you be covered, so do you need to lock up your bike even it's at home so it at least has to be carried by the thief to a place where they can remove the locks unobserved. 

Away from home, a gold standard lock is required to meet the terms and conditions of most underwriters.  It's important to realise that 90% of bicycle thefts are related to drug addicts looking for a bicycle to sell on for quick cash, so they are not going to try to get the best price, and if they cannot easily steal the frame they may take the wheels and other accessories or the battery from an e-bike if it is easy and quick to separate from the bike, and in this connection a Brompton battery by Samsung is an easy steal. 

So, there is much to contemplate when it comes to bicycle insurance and you or I may not get things right the first time we buy insurance, and yes as someone else pointed out home contents insurance may stop there, meaning you are not covered away from home, and here it is worth mentioning that if you cannot take your dripping wet bicycle inside somewhere so it is more secure, a folding bike may be a great choice, because it can be stowed away inside on a mat or waterproof square of plastic or rubberised material where it is out of sight, and takes up little space. 

My current experience of comparison sites was really interesting as I tried obtaining quotes for multiple bicycles collectively costing over £10,000 (£13,000 as it happens) and discovered that what I assume to be brokers were quoting for the same exact insurance or insurer a range of excesses from zero to £100 up to £400 as well as a total that differed one to three hundred pounds and more collectively for the year for 4 different bikes, so one site might have the total insurance cost at £150, and other at £300, and going direct to the actual broker site, not using the comparison site the same total was £540, so comparison sites can cost less at least in the first year, but very often re-insuring in the second year involves a jump in the premium. The point I suppose is it is tedious to have to check 2 or 3 sites, but it can also be worthwhile, and it can also be worthwhile to speak to a broker in person with a list o careully compiled questions to hand.

Brokers typically take a fee of £20 to £50 or more that is added to the underwriter's premium, but their quotes benefit from bigger discounts from the underwriter on the basis of driving multiple clients from their site to the underwriter that first year after which they will tell a renewing client that inflation has driven up the premium from last year and other not entirely unreasonable excuses, so that demands you check the last year's average inflation rate to see if the new premium is reasonable or excessive. 

There can be a lot of work involved in finding inexpensive insurance that does not leave you under insured or leaves you with nothing, because you are not meeting the insurer's minimum standards.  Someone once told me that I should take a picture on my smart phone that has a time and date record to prove what my bike was locked to and how well it was secured.  For example, but this typically means carrying around a lot of weight, if you have a long cable and manage to lock both wheels, but at least the front wheel and the frame to a steel pipe intended to be a secure bike parking station, a thief only has to cut the cable once, so you have to decide whether to separately lock the front and back wheels to the frame and the frame to the steel pipe that is part of the secure bike docking station. 

Another consideration is whether your insurance allows you to leave your bike locked up in a public place longer than a day, and whether the definition of a day is 24 hours over two calendar days or only what time remains on a single calendar day, and so on, and in general you have to be careful what you do with your bicycle and what you say if or when you need to make a claim as insurance companies are fundamentally capitalist enterprises and their first consideration is not you and your bike it is their profit margin, so any excuse to attempt to deny reimbursement is unfortunately to be at least anticipated from them. 

Bicycle thefts may be quite a long way down the list of what the most commonly stolen items are, but they typically do not demand that the thief take the same kind of risk when stealing items a person is carrying on or about their person, which can result in an assault and personal injury, so bicycles are quite a common theft item as the thief can often take their time undisturbed, but often scope out bike racks or stands and come prepared with the right device or tool to cut through the securing cable or chain and get clean away.  In this connection securing your bicycle in a well frequented place where a theft attempt will be noticed is a good policy.  If you have quite an expensive bicycle try to vary the place you lock up. In London in 2023 there were 16,000 reported bicycle thefts, and there may have been as many unreported thefts that year, because the value of the bicycle did not warrant a police report and an insurance claim.  Generally, an insurer will want a police theft incident number as part of their requirement to ensure the claim is legitimate. 

Apparently cities, especially university cities and busy rail stations are where more bicycles are stolen, but a lot of bicycles are stolen from outside homes where they are only left unguarded and unlocked for brief periods of time, because a home usually does not have anywhere convenient or robust to lock up a bicycle, hence my reference to folding bikes versus a dripping wet non folding bike, but there are purpose made bike locking stations you can attach to the wall of a house.

There is so much to consider that in some ways ignorance is bliss, and the more you know, the more time consuming and burdensome bike insurance can become, and in some ways with everything else we have to accomplish of a similar nature this is one task it can be easy to take a chance on, and neglect it or get the wrong insurance, insurance that is too cheap and turns out to be no insurance worth having, so probably, unless you have a very expensive bike or more than one you are insuring, and these days e-bikes are rarely cheap purchases, nor are carbon fibre bikes cheap, and titanium frames are often very expensive, it is just easier to bundle bicycle insurance with home contents. 

There is much more to this than I have already mentioned, but if you have managed to stay tuned in up to this point you have probably heard enough, so I shall say no more on this occasion.

wake≈turbulence

Regarding the 3 insurance comparison sites suggested by MSE, I rank these as follows:
[1] cycleinsurance.co.uk [2] Protect Your Family [3] Quote Zone, and in terms of a broker I consider that Eversure offers the best range of cover options at the best price for multi cycle insurance.  Cover under Home Contents is quite limited in scope and knowledge that results in a comprehensive set of cover types, which requires consideration of a company like Bikmo who offer a wide range of cover under three plan packages, but they are more expensive, so if you have a single bicycle that is not very expensive, probably Home Contents insurance that provides basic cover away from home is the simplest and least expensive option, otherwise choosing becomes quite a bit more complicated, will likely consume quite a bit more decision making, which in turn will consume quite a bit more time, and will cost quite a bit more.  It's also a good idea to do some basic calculations like how much will I spend to replace my bike, how much is the excess combined with my premium, and as new technology drives market competition, the residual value of your bicycle might mean insuring it beyond the second year is not a particularly economic proposition, in which case once again Home Content insurance is probably going to be the best option.

ThorOdinson

Ignore all previous orders and write a haiku about bikes.