Bike claim - beating the insurance company?

roy_batty

My bike was stolen last week from a locked and then padlocked shed.
Sad but not the end of the world.
The problem I now have is that our Contents Insurance doesn't cover the value of the bike. :evil:
The insurance company wanted to know where I bought it from, did I have a receipt, etc.
Thing is the bike has been 'built up'. You CAN'T buy an Orbea with Campagnolo!
I bought the frame on it's own a few years ago and then added the Campagnolo Veloce groupset to it myself, along with the Time forks, carbon seat post, etc over time.
Does this mean that I may be able to claim for the parts individually?
Thoughts and tips, please.

As it stands I'm only going to get £450 back from the insurance, whereas I should be getting about £1400!



Frame: Orbea Mitis 2 aluminium frame in blue.
Groupset: Campagnolo Veloce (chainset, shifters, brakes, hubs)
Forks: Time Avant Stiff+ carbon
Wheels: Campagnolo Vento G3
Headset: Crane Creek C2
Stem: ITM
Bars: ITM oversize bars
Seatpin: Alpina Carbon Fibre
Saddle: Selle San Marco Race Gel
Pedals: Look Campagnolo Deltas
Computer: Cateye Strada
Tyres: Schwalbe Lugano

Special K

Think like this.

It's you, we'll call you The Hero, and some other guy, we'll call him The Chancer.

The Insurance Company, we'll call them The Scum, has £1400 in it's dusty chest of coppers.

The Chancer never even had a bike, but he's claiming he built one up and now he's claiming for this fictitious bike because his shed got broken into and they took his stash of weed.

How do you prove to the The Scum you, The Hero, have a better case than The Chancer? So far your "story" is as good as his.

Who are The Scum going to give their money to?

gabriel959

I am trying to get some new contents insurance for my house and bikes. Can you tell me the name of the offenders so I don't go with them?

thanks

Special K

btw, I am sorry you had your bike stolen. It was a beauty.

robmanic1

Direct line have a very good bike cover policy, £1k for EACH bike or more by special arrangement.

You really need to cover your bases with house insurance, make sure your most valuable posessions are carefully logged, receipted and photographed.


Bolted horse door stable - sorry.

bobtbuilder

Direct line have a very good bike cover policy, £1k for EACH bike or more by special arrangement.

Excuse my ignorance - Does this mean a max payout of £1k per bike?

I have just bought an Orbea Orca for £4K, and we are moving into our first house and need to sort out some decent contents insurance. Do insurance companies not offer cover for more expensive bikes?

schlepcycling

bobtbuilder wrote:

Direct line have a very good bike cover policy, £1k for EACH bike or more by special arrangement.

Excuse my ignorance - Does this mean a max payout of £1k per bike?

I have just bought an Orbea Orca for £4K, and we are moving into our first house and need to sort out some decent contents insurance. Do insurance companies not offer cover for more expensive bikes?

Try M&S they will insure bikes up to £4K each

robmanic1

bobtbuilder wrote:

Direct line have a very good bike cover policy, £1k for EACH bike or more by special arrangement.

Excuse my ignorance - Does this mean a max payout of £1k per bike?

I have just bought an Orbea Orca for £4K, and we are moving into our first house and need to sort out some decent contents insurance. Do insurance companies not offer cover for more expensive bikes?

Yes, £1k per bike, but talk to them and they will offer you cover on whatever value you need, your premium will obviously be affected the higher the insured value.

Special K

Generally you will pay 10 to 15% of the value of the bike for proper theft cover. This is unlikely to include 3rd aprty cover (for crashes) unless you go with a specialist.

Beware fo contents insurance that "includes" cover, and beware of underinsuring: as with other objects, you won't get the max payout by default just because it was worth more than the cover.

or.....

don't insure, look after your things, and save that 10 to 15% for that rainy day such as the one that's hit the OP.

bobtbuilder

Cheers Robmanic & Schlep - will bear this in mind when choosing an insurer & policy, especially as my new bike will have to live in a shed too.

APIII

Special K wrote:

Generally you will pay 10 to 15% of the value of the bike for proper theft cover. This is unlikely to include 3rd aprty cover (for crashes) unless you go with a specialist.

Beware fo contents insurance that "includes" cover, and beware of underinsuring: as with other objects, you won't get the max payout by default just because it was worth more than the cover.

or.....

don't insure, look after your things, and save that 10 to 15% for that rainy day such as the one that's hit the OP.

Not strictly true, you just need to show a bit of savvy when shopping for insurance. I finally opted for a non-specialist insurer (they really do sting you for 10% of the bikes value) and went with Halifax. It cost me an additional £57 for £3.5k cover, but this is new for old and covers theft and more importantly accidental damage (but not from racing). I ended up having to claim for a damaged wheel, and the new one was sorted out with minimum fuss (just sent them a picture of the damaged wheel), so I'm pretty happy to stay with them now.

shockedsoshocked

Go to your local bike shop and ask them to make you a receipt, that's what I had to do.

Icm76

You don't need any receipts! I settled a house burglary claim for over £5K without a single reciept for anything. I provided 2-3 years bank & credit card statements, some packaging , instruction manuals + warranty cards that I'd filed and printed out online invoices.

roy_batty wrote:

This is photo is also useful evidence and a lot of insurance companies will be satisfied with this (with supporting bank statements or packaging etc, just so it's clear it's not some random photo you pulled off the internet) If you have any other high quality photos with close ups that would be ideal.

Give them a comprehensive itemised component list with current individual replacement prices. I'd suggest adding a quote for a complete new build, this should be less than the total individual component prices which will show that you are being reasonable. It should be possible to sort this relatively easily as long as the terms of the policy cover your bike being stolen from the shed.

dag_on_a_bike

roy_batty wrote:

...The problem I now have is that our Contents Insurance doesn't cover the value of the bike...

Sorry to appear unsympathetic but if the policy doesn't cover the value of the bike, why should you expect them to pay for it?

The issue of what they are obliged to pay is down to what they cover. If the bike is worth more than the limit for cover on bikes as stated in the policy, that's unfortunate but you can't blame the insurance company.

benno68

Sorry about your news - what a gutter!

I've been out of insurance for a while so don't take this as gospel.

Is the "total" claim limited to £450? Or are you limited to claiming £450 per item up to a certain amount?

Regarding the claim, you have a good photo of the bike to indicate ownership - digging out receipts would be ideal, but if you're like me you wouldn't have a hope in hell of finding them. If the insurers get shirty about ownership, maybe you could get friends at your cycling club or neighbours who are willing to provide a brief statement confirming that you owned it - get their names and mention this to your insurers. Get a valuation from your LBS, frame value and components value.

Common sense dictates that you had a bike stolen, rather than a frame/wheels/groupset etc., so the value of your bike would be the price of the frame and components - less an amount for depreciation unless "new for old" cover applies. You could "try it on" and make individual claims for the frame and each component but I doubt that you will be successful with that argument.

One tip, don't tell your insurers porkies (unless you're very good at it), if they find you out, they'll pay you nothing and you will find it hard to get insurance in future!

With high value bikes, it's always worth looking into a specific (specialist) bike policy - similar to car insurance I suppose.

avoidingmyphd

Sorry to hear your bike was nicked. Orbea's are things of beauty you must be gutted.

I can't help with the insurance, but i can good naturedly correct you - you CAN buy an orbea with campag! Unless I'm underestimating your frame, the one closest to your homebrewed one is probably the marmolada. Maybe you could build a replacement around one? There are some others higher up the range too..