Bike insurance

3collinso

Whats the best bike insurance company to use, i'd rather get independent bike insurance rather than add it to my house insurance policy,
cheers

njee20

You'll pay a vast amount more to have a standalone policy - reckon on about 10% the value of the bike. Why wouldn't you add it to your house insurance? :?

3collinso

I've now added it to my house insurance policy after looking into this further,
cheers (Y)

Daley87

Isn't a stand alone policy needed if you would be locking the bike up anywhere other than home? Surely that wouldnt be covered under home insurance would it? Cheers guys

cooldad

Generally it is or can be.

Grovsie29

Id imagine so but you'd have to be a complete bell end to leave a 4grand bike alone, IMO.

njee20

Home insurance will have the option to cover bikes away from home.

sofaboy73

something worth knowing and can avoid additional cost, is that if you are only looking for cover in the home (ie protection against burgalry) and you keep the bike in the house (not garages . sheds etc), a lot of policies will consider the bike as 'general contents' (subject to single item limit - very often c 10K) rather than a bike or 'valuable item' (usually jewelry, watches etc with lower item limits).

I know direct line do as they paid me out 5K for my bike after it got stolen in a burgalry with no additional cover extentions on my contents policy. From what i'gve seen a number of the other big insurers do as well. worth looking as you can save yourself a £100-200 on a 'bike extension' to your policy.

of course this provides no protection away from home, hwoever when the bikes out of the house i'm either on it, it's within my grasp or it's locked & coevered in the car so pretty low risk

njee20

or it's locked & coevered in the car so pretty low risk

Plenty of bikes go missing from cars, and you won't be covered by your car insurance.

sofaboy73

njee20 wrote:

or it's locked & coevered in the car so pretty low risk

Plenty of bikes go missing from cars, and you won't be covered by your car insurance.

i know, but a bike locked in car, covered with a dust sheet so it's not visable, parked in a clearly visable area, on an irregular basis and only unattended for very short periods of time (eg at the motorway services when i dive in for a coffee / toilet) is a pretty low risk of being of being stolen.

biggest risk of having you bike nicked (in terms of an expensive mountain bike) is having it targeted eg some one specifically breaks in to steal a high value bike they know is there / gets taken from a trail centre where theives know there wull be lots of valuable bikes.

Risks of opportunist thieves (ie you leave it unlocked on a car rack or unattended while you nip in for a cofee half way round a ride) or none targeted theft (eg someone breaks into your garage / shed and happens to find an expensive bike there) can be mitigated by your own actions (ie keep it locked in the house anchored to something / don't be an idiot and leave it unattended)

manage the risk when the bike is out of the house and vunerable and you can save yourself some hefty premiums. for everything else, you have your contents (if your policy responds in the way i originally highlighted)

kevinharley

Also worth checking, if you keep your bike(s) in an outbuilding / garage / shed, many home contents policies have a limit on the total amount paid out in the event of a theft from an 'outbuilding', even if you have specific additional cover under your home policy for your bikes ...