Getting an insurance valuation ???

Avoneer

Hi All,

I need to get my bike valued for insurance purposes, but it's a bitsabike.

Any ideas how I go about it - LBS?

Can anyone do it online and supply a valuation that will be suffice for insurance purposes?

Thanks,

Pat...

anto164

Pop down to your LBS and get them to do one. It needs to be done properly. Best thing for you to do is write it all down what you have and then take the bike and the list to the LBS and ask them to do it for you.

I've only ever custom built my bikes and i've taken the spec list to my lbs. They've formalised it and put it on a proper 'insurance valuation' form which they have.

Yossie

Yup - as above.

Make sure however that you list every single part on there - cables inner and outers, cable guides, brake blocks, any funny Ti bolts, skewers, tubes, tyres, skull shaped valve caps, etc, etc: essentially start at the front of the bike and work your way back.

If it isn't listed then they can't value it so if it does go missing you'll have to pay for it and there is no way you can say "but what about by £14 each latex tubes and my £75 worth of Gore pro cables" and so on.

Best thing to do is to put it all on a spreadsheet all set out really nicely and clearly, then pop into the LBS with the spreadsheet and the bike - they will fill in the blanks with current RRP values: doesn't matter if you can get it cheaper off the 'net, you want LBS values on LBS headed paper.

Also take lots of piccies of your bike with the components clearly showing: we can all draw up a wish list of parts but the insurance company needs to see what you actually have.

If you are using a decent lock take a picture of that as well to show that it wasn't secured with cheese and faith in The Force: an insurance approved lock also carries weight with companies should it all go wrong (some lock companies also do deals where if the lock is cut through they will give you some wedge, so worth looking around)

HTH

Y

MichaelW

When I worked in bike insurance validation (with a specialist validation company who serviced most of the major insurance companies) , we dealt with custom and self-build bikes.
For self-builds, we would search for a production bike of similar grade and componentry and use that as the basis for validation to select a replacement.

For special custom frames, we generally went with the custom builders price.

As Yossie recommends, note EVERY part of the bike, down to the rim tape.
Photograph the bike to document the parts. Use clear photos, close enough to be useful, in focus, without blur. I cant tell you how many validations I did from blurry, unfocussed pics of half a bike. I can assure you that the people doing bike validations now, know less and care less than we did so make their life as easy as possible.