Churchill? Ohhh No !

stevewheel

Hi guys,

Spoke to the "jowly insurance hound" today about cover for my nice new carbon steed (value £1500) and he wants £38 to insure it for a year, theft , damage etc...Ohhh Yess...BUT it's not covered if I keep it locked in my alarmed and locked garden shed or garage...Ohhh Noo!

Firstly is this normal and does anyone have any experience of specialist cycling insurers or anyone you would reccomend?

Thanks

alfablue

Hi Steve

Specialist insurance usually costs a lot more (often 10% or more of the bike value per year). I am told that M&S home insurance includes unlimeted bikes of up to £4000 each without any special conditions. I think an extension of cover deals with use of posessions (including the bikes) away from home.

I have CIS home insurance, I pay about £24 per year to cover one bike of £1400, and it is covered worldwide, no special conditions. M&S sounds better though.

gkerr4

insurance is a funny game isnt it

i just renewed my motorbike insurance - it;s a 3yr old 600cc sportsbike valued at about £3500 it's outrageously fast, often stolen for fun and i still can't believe i have a licence to ride something so scary & dangerous

the renewal - £82

yep - eighty-two quid

my wristwatch costs as much to insure - and yet people can't insure pushbikes of less than half the value if, God forbid, they want to leave it in the their alarmed brick garage!!!

what do they expect you to do - sleep with it?

stevewheel

what do they expect you to do - sleep with it?

Well, funny you should say that........

Actually the Jowly insurance hound said that he would cover the bike if I kept it in the house!! I asked if he would like it in any particular room but he didn't see the funny side of that! I wouldn't mind but the shed & garage are both hard wired into the main house alarm system..........you only have to breath out of sequence and all hell breaks loose...best cure for constipation I have ever found. In addition the thye chain I use to lock it up is thicker than the top tube !! I just tried CycleGuard online and they want £99...it just gets worse !!! Ohhh Yesss.

cycologist

My wealthy uncle from Harrogate made his comfortable living as an insurance agent in the days before t'internet, yet he held very little in the way of insurance cover for his own posessions. He reckoned that the small fortune he saved by not paying premiums easily paid for the occaisional outlay for lost or stolen items.

giant_man

Doesn't make sense at all, you would have thought protecting the bike in such a manner would please any insurance company. For my money i would go M & S, the scope of cover is generous for the money you pay.

Nuggs

gkerr4 wrote:

insurance is a funny game isnt it

i just renewed my motorbike insurance - it;s a 3yr old 600cc sportsbike valued at about £3500 it's outrageously fast, often stolen for fun and i still can't believe i have a licence to ride something so scary & dangerous

the renewal - £82

yep - eighty-two quid

Similar story for me - fully comp insurance on a 4ltr V8 TVR.... £200 p.a., I kid you not.

You could try Direct Line - I have my bike insured with them. They only insure up to £1,000 (at no extra premium) and for £30/year, I've insured it (up to £1,000 again) against accidental damage.

Belv

As the price seems cheaper than others, i'd take the insurance anyway. It doesn't sound like someone is going to be able to nick it from your garage/shed even if they wanted to and you will then be covered for the more likely event of accident/theft elsewhere.

pneumatic

I was always tempted not to take out loss/damage insurance and just use the money saved to buy a new one if I lose or damage the old one. I had my cars on third party for years (they were quite old!), never bought an extended warranty in my life and had the basic home contents cover only. My brick shed has no alarm (but it does have a woodburning stove!)

However, last night we watched that great Italian post-war movie "The Bicycle Thieves". After living through 93 minutes of sheer distress and hopelessness, empathising with every sigh the hero and his boy exhaled as they tried to remedy their uninsured loss, my young son said to me "Dad, I hope you never have your bike stolen."

Today I have started a new policy and, already I am glad to be with M&S extended home contents and to know that my bikes are covered worldwide. What is more, it is 100 quid cheaper than I was paying before!

(No, I don't work for M&S and I am not an insurance broker!)

graham_g

giant mancp wrote:

Doesn't make sense at all, you would have thought protecting the bike in such a manner would please any insurance company. For my money i would go M & S, the scope of cover is generous for the money you pay.

Same here - the level of cover through M&S is absolutely superb. Even some of the agents of other companies I'd had quotes from told me it was excellent and they couldn't compete with it when they called back to sell me a policy. For the sake of one bike, it might not be worth switching, but for several and for any other value item that might ever leave the home (music gear for me), it's well worth it.

daniel_b

Another vote for M&S, I switched to them for home insurance after seeing a recommendation on here.

We have 4 bikes of, what I deem, reasonable value, so it worked out fine, and overall over the cheapest option, it only worked out at an extra £40 per year, where as a specialist cycle insurer wanted around £140 - for the quantity, and total value, of bikes we had.

Dan

speckybecky

We are insured with Churchill. Although it runs out soon and we won't be insured with them next year! Our garage was broken into in Feb and my husbands scott mtb was stolen along with his DRZ motorbike. Luckily they left the other bikes alone. All of the bikes are named indvidually on the insurance policy for specific values. Regardless of this we had to provide a detailed inventory of the Scott mtb's spec so they could get HALFORDS (!) to value it. He was then offered a GT something or other rubbish (this took about 3 weeks). After complaining we finally got a cheque for the amount of money we had insured the bike for. The whole process took about a month. A few years ago we had bikes stolen when we were insured with Directline. I don't remember there being any problems with them.
OOOh and if anybody happens to spot a blue Scott Racing mtb in South Wales, ridden by scallys can they let me know! Ta