Insurers insisting I take bicycle cover

Chimp68

Does anyone have any experience of the following please?

I have held buildings and contents insurance with the same provider for 2 years. Within the policy I have extra cover for 2 bicycles which are valued above the standard £500 limit.

My insurance was due for renewal so I rang them to ask how much the premium would increase if I added additional cover for 3 extra bicycles (also valued above £500 each).

The premium would increase significantly so I said I would get back to them.

When I rang the following day to renew at the original premium cost (without the additional bikes) I was told this wasn't possible and they insisted I either include the extra bikes at the higher premium, or they would not insure me at all.

I have never come across this before. I thought cover for the bikes was an optional extra and it would be my choice whether to include them on the policy. 

Does an insurer have a right to insist I purchase bicycle cover? 

Can someone help please? 

Peter999_2

They don't have to take your business if they decide not to.   They aren't forcing you to do anything just not willing to cover you anymore unless you insure the bikes.

They are probably thinking that you'll just insure the 2 bikes when you have 3.   They think that if 1 or 2 of the 3 gets stolen you'd be covered by them and they would have no way of knowing if it was actually the 3 bike that went.

unforeseen

They now know you have 5 bikes and your current policy only covers 2. Your choice is cover all 5 or none and get a separate policy for them.

TELLIT01

Try to contact them by phone and say you were enquiring about the cost for additional bikes if you purchased them.  Emphasise that you have not purchased.

DullGreyGuy

Chimp68 said:

Does anyone have any experience of the following please?

I have held buildings and contents insurance with the same provider for 2 years. Within the policy I have extra cover for 2 bicycles which are valued above the standard £500 limit.

My insurance was due for renewal so I rang them to ask how much the premium would increase if I added additional cover for 3 extra bicycles (also valued above £500 each).

The premium would increase significantly so I said I would get back to them.

When I rang the following day to renew at the original premium cost (without the additional bikes) I was told this wasn't possible and they insisted I either include the extra bikes at the higher premium, or they would not insure me at all.

I have never come across this before. I thought cover for the bikes was an optional extra and it would be my choice whether to include them on the policy. 

Does an insurer have a right to insist I purchase bicycle cover? 

Can someone help please? 

Home insurance requires you declare the value of all items in your home, most stuff is done collectively (general contents) and other items have to be specified if over a certain value, basic insurers it can be as low as £750, top end of the high street is more like £15,000. Some insurers have special classes so £5,000 for anything that stays in the home but £2,000 for anything that goes out the home.

Some people seem to think they can pick and choose, so insurer their TV and their laptop and some general stuff but decide not to include the grand piano thats upstairs as there's no way anyone can steal it and its too high to be flooded. It doesnt work that way. 

Bike cover varies between insurers, so if they state you must declare all bikes over £500 then yes if you own 3 bikes over £500 you must declare all of them unless you are saying you no longer own the third one or its now being kept somewhere else (which they may want evidence of). 

Other insurers include bikes in the home under general contents and only need to know about bikes you want to be insured away from the house. My wife's Brompton fits in this category with M&S, she never leaves it outside the home and 99% of her cycling is in proper segregated cycle lanes so the only real risk she's running is being mugged for it and so we choose not to insure it outside of the home. 

Ultimately each year is a new contract and neither party is obliged to agree to it, so if bike cover is mandatory then they are totally correct and you were previously underinsured and if its optional then they are just using their right not to renew which would only be an issue if it was based on a protected characteristic (sexual orientation, religion etc)

Chimp68

Thank you for all your comments. It has clarified the position for me.
I was confused because as far as I understood, bike cover wasn't mandatory, but an optional extra. When I rang for a quote, I wasn't advised it was mandatory and that requesting a quote would invalidate my original renewal quotation. 
As it happens, they later told me that the total combined value of the bikes exceeded their maximum limit, so they wouldn't have been able to insure them anyway - again, something I wasn't informed about when I was quoted originally.

DullGreyGuy

Chimp68 said:

Thank you for all your comments. It has clarified the position for me.
I was confused because as far as I understood, bike cover wasn't mandatory, but an optional extra. When I rang for a quote, I wasn't advised it was mandatory and that requesting a quote would invalidate my original renewal quotation. 
As it happens, they later told me that the total combined value of the bikes exceeded their maximum limit, so they wouldn't have been able to insure them anyway - again, something I wasn't informed about when I was quoted originally.

Most insurers dont directly talk about things being mandatory but you can infer it from the question:

Do you have any bikes valued over £500? - this is mandatory, they are asking for a statement of fact

Would you like to cover any bikes over £500 away from the home? - this is optional, they are asking for your preference

Technically the first could then be followed by a question on if you want cover away from the home but you'd still have to answer "yes" to the first question. Unfortunately people over think questions rather than directly answering what has been asked, biggest cause of travel insurance claims being declined is because people decided when they were asked "have you consulted a medical professional, taken medication or suffered symptoms in the last 2 years?" that the insurer didnt want to know about their broken leg 6 months ago or their diagnosis of having the clap