Home contents insurance + bikes?

njee20

What an odd pseudo-spamming post from Raggs :?

stiscooby

I have just gone through a claim via Direct Line for my bike which was recently stolen.

One thing I would say now from personal experience is check to see what the deal is with replacing your bike (and get details). The reason I say this is my bike cost £400 about 18 months ago so they (the company who Direct Line passed me onto to deal with the claim) came up with an equivalent being a Voodoo Bantu, which is also currently at £399.

From asking on here it would seem a fair deal but I wasn't too keen on the bike (mainly due to the paint job) so questioned what other options there were and what I did then find out was I basically had to accept a Halfords voucher for the sum of £399 or if there was no other bikes I liked I would have to have a similar bike from another "supplier that this company used" (which was Wheelies) or I could have had a pay-out from Direct Line themselves but because of the way things work I would not get £399 I would only get about £299 :x The reason for this is it’s something to do with these companies getting a bulk discount for using certain suppliers for claims, if I wanted to use my local bike shop for example then it's almost a "on-off" claim for the insurance company so they get no discount so in turn take a certain amount out of your (well my in this case) pay out!! This doesn't seem right to me but that’s how they work.

Wasn't too bad for me in the end as I managed to bump them up to over £600 for the accessories I had on the bike too. So I might get the Voodoo Hoodoo now or, if the Boardman Comps come down a bit use the entire voucher for one of these as I prefer the look/finish over the Voodoo's.

My Girl Friends cousin and her husband are well into their bikes too (build their own etc) and they had over 10K's worth of stuff stolen earlier in the year. They found the same thing, they would have had to take a bike from the likes of Wheelies or take about 25% loss on their pay-out, which is what they ended up doing due to they couldn't get what they wanted from Wheelies.

So, in short - check what the deal is with where your replacement bikes etc will "have" to come from or lose some £'s!!

njee20

Push back, they'll give you £399, they have to, they just don't want to. Unless it says otherwise in your wording.

stiscooby

njee20 wrote:

Push back, they'll give you £399, they have to, they just don't want to. Unless it says otherwise in your wording.

Bit late now anyway as I have been sent a Halfords voucher.

They didn't want to budge for me, was either Halfords, Wheelies or payout from insurance company direct and drop 25% off the payout.

All the wording says in my policy is my bike will be 'replaced'. Now quite how they handle things when you dont accept what they offer is another matter, I guess maybe thats where the direct pay out from the insurance company comes in, all be it - a reduced amount!

hopper1

I've been with M&S for 3 years now, covering all bikes up to £4000.
When my renewal arrived last week, I thought maybe I should discuss options. After a chat, it was agreed that if I should damage my TT bike at a race (ie, with full race set on) then the bike would be worth more than the threshold.
That bike has cost me an extra £25 per month to cover!
£55 per month in total. 11 bikes, no excess, home and away, accidental damage and no limit on garage contents...
I guess that ain't too shoddy, really.