Cycle Insurance

denwyn

We have reecently bought a couple of electric bikes total cost £3200. Have been looking at trying to get them insured. Cant do it on house policy as they wont cover them. Have been looking on specalist sites for bike insurance, not sure on any of them, prices quoted are more than i pay to insure my car fully comp, the car is worth 3 times the cost of the bikes at least. i also notice that a lot of the bike insurers i have looked at seem to be sort of affiliated, ie they seem to be same compamy with different name. Just want to cover them for theft and damage. there securly locked up at home and we have expensive insurance rated locks when using them. Anyone point me in direction of decent insurance company. looked at likes of compare the market etc and they dont do cycles at all.

Thanks

Blibble

Why won't your contents cover it? Could you not add accidental damage / personal possessions cover, and specify the bikes at their current new-for-old replacement value?

Cycle insurance in my experience tends to not be a great product - might it be worth self-insuring in this case and putting some money aside each month in lieu of your premium payments?

denwyn

They have a max £750 per bike,which isn't enough,plus they didn't seem interested. Can't really change contents insurance now,current policy is building and contents doesn't expire till Nov. Don't understand the self insurance at all. ????

Blibble

So your contents will cover them, just the value is under that of the cycles. If you ask your contents insurance to specify the cycles on the policy, they will charge you a bit more of a premium however this will be the most cost effective way of doing things.

Not sure how better I can define self-insuring - "putting some money inside in lieu of your premium payments" - i.e., don't get any insurance and save the money you'd otherwise be spending on insurance for if the worst happens.

vacheron

We have 4 bikes, 2 worth less than £1000, one worth £2200 and one with an original RRP of £4750.

I tried a specific bicycle insurer (through Evans Cycles IIRC) and got an annual quote for the £4750 bike of £275 per year....FOR ONE BIKE!

I renewed my home insurance with AA and was able to get building and contents insurance including cover for all 4 bikes. 2 were under the single article limit of £1500 and the higher two were listed as named personal belongings along with their respective values.

The entire policy (building + contents + bikes) came to £105.37 with £40 cashback making it effectively £65.37... or to put it another way, more than 4 times cheaper than insuring 1 bike alone! :rotfl:

Pedalous

Whilst all the advice is great, if you need good value specific cover I'd try Yellow Jersey Cycle Insurance. They offer a multi-bike discount, family cover, emergency breakdown assistance and actually cover your liability on the road in case you hit a pedestrian.

stugib

Please check the T&Cs to check electric bikes are covered - I found a lot of them excluded electric bikes from their cycle section. I'm with Churchill.

denwyn

I tried yellow jersey, they want £280 for the two bikes, i find that expensive as i pay that for my car. seems to me its all a bit of a rip off. i am going to try my home contents and building insurance with Legal and General. It seems the best way to go is maybe through home insurance. if they wont do it i will cancel it and switch to one who will.

Blibble

stugib wrote: »

Please check the T&Cs to check electric bikes are covered - I found a lot of them excluded electric bikes from their cycle section. I'm with Churchill.

Not if it's specified on there in my experience, although it may be excluded under the standard cover with single article limit?

Nebulous2

Bikes are difficult to insure as they have a habit of being stolen. My best bike isn't insured but when it is out of the house it is rarely out of my sight.

Cycling forums often used to recommend M&S home insurance as they were good at adding bikes on for a reasonable price. I don't know if that has changed. Mainstream household insurers simply don't want to insure expensive bikes. A £750 or £1000 maximum is often in place and they often wont accept dearer bikes at all, even as specified items.

stugib

Blibble wrote: »

Not if it's specified on there in my experience, although it may be excluded under the standard cover with single article limit?

I was looking under their definitions of 'bicycle' - some explicitly (and bizarrely IMO) excluded electric bikes, e.g. https://help.endsleigh.co.uk/app/answers/detail/a_id/406/kw/electric%20bicycle/related/1