Contents Insurance & Bike Cover

Ulysses

I called Directline today to enquire about cover for bike & other gear in the garage. The lady said the standard garage and door locks are fine, no need to lock the bikes in the garage and everything inside is covered in the £55k on our policy. I was very clear about the values involved. I also asked them to send out a letter to confirm theres no special requirements.

Does that sound too easy?

cooldad

Read your policy.

nicklouse

and the small print and make sure your locks meet their standard locks. in fact make sure your Garage meets their standard.

neddie

Generally items over £×××× need to be itemized

Read your policy

CitizenLee

Aviva seemed to offer the best deal for contents inc bikes when I was looking recently. They have a separate section to list them.

How does it work if its a custom build using some second hand parts?

Ulysses

CitizenLee wrote:

Aviva seemed to offer the best deal for contents inc bikes when I was looking recently. They have a separate section to list them.

How does it work if its a custom build using some second hand parts?

From what I have read they replace like for like, I guess if you have proof of purchasing the parts or photos to prove they were fitted then the ins co would offer a close spec as a replacement.
They might do the same as with car insurance and have an agreed value for it when taking out the policy?

Kowalski675

Ulysses wrote:

They might do the same as with car insurance and have an agreed value for it when taking out the policy?

Car insurance policies don't have an agreed value. Not regular ones anyway - only specialist ones for classics etc. Doesn't matter what figure you give when they ask the car's value when you take out the policy (wtf do they ask that anyway - they should know it, and it has no relevance to any claim payout anyway), the initial offer they make for any total loss claim will always be bottom book value.

Antm81

Kowalski675 wrote:

the initial offer they make for any total loss claim will always be bottom book value.

Not always true, they found 3 cars locally to me with similar mileage, same spec etc and offered me the middle price of the 3.

Kowalski675

Antm81 wrote:

Kowalski675 wrote:

the initial offer they make for any total loss claim will always be bottom book value.

Not always true, they found 3 cars locally to me with similar mileage, same spec etc and offered me the middle price of the 3.

They'll almost always open with an offer of less than it's worth though.

Ulysses

Depends on the insurer, one we deal which bases on local market price and Glasses Retail with mileage, options and damage adjustments. Others try and pay jack. Valuations can be contested, if the insurer is being unreasonable then mentioning "ombudsman" helps get them playing ball as it will cost them money to go that route.

Kowalski675

Ulysses wrote:

if the insurer is being unreasonable

Lol @ "if".

njee20

Direct line did look good when ours was up for renewal IIRC, but I'd definitely check your wording for limits on bikes.

IDave

Don't go with Aviva! Those awful adverts with Paul Whitehouse in prosthetic makeup, badly impersonating regional accents, should put anyone off ever wanting to insure through them! :? :?

cooldad

IDave wrote:

Don't go with Aviva! Those awful adverts with Paul Whitehouse in prosthetic makeup, badly impersonating regional accents, should put anyone off ever wanting to insure through them! :? :?

You watch ads?
It's the 21st century. HD recorders have been around for ages.

CitizenLee

IDave wrote:

Don't go with Aviva! Those awful adverts with Paul Whitehouse in prosthetic makeup, badly impersonating regional accents, should put anyone off ever wanting to insure through them! :? :?

Haha, the ads are terrible but if they can insure my bike and have ok T&Cs I'd still be happy to go with them. Other than allowing me to select the value of the bikes, they also seemed to cover them if kept locked up in a locked basement which was a deal breaker for me. Just waiting for TSB ins to run out now.

MGDriver

I've read the replies to your question Ulysses, and I don't know if your sorted yet or not, but I had a good experience with Direct Line. I insured two bikes with them as part of our house insurance, the bikes were individually listed on the Pedal Cycles part of the policy, both insured for stated values of £750 & £1,800.
Fast forward 18 months and at 5am one morning I'm awoken by a noise from downstairs as two scrotes are helping themselves to the bikes from the garage, they got the expensive one, the noise was them dropping the cheaper one on my classic MG grrr! They got away with one bike.
Phone call to DL, explained it all to them and their policy was: as the bike was stolen from the house/garage they would class it as a contents claim and I could claim for the bike plus any additional parts I have added to it, within reason, no questions asked, this meant I could claim for the wheels I had added but not got around to updating the insured value, with this I had to pay the £50 excess. If I had made it a Pedal Cycle claim I could only have claimed the agreed value (£1700), but only paid £15 excess.
They never questioned the garage locks, or have not since. They paid the full value of the bike and accessories I claimed for (less the excess) and I a had a new bike in 10 days (They supplied the bike from Wheelies, but I knew what I wanted so I didn't really mind where it came from, and they gave a cash settlement for the rest)
So in short Direct Line looked after me well.

Ult

Just check the small print for maximum value insured in a garage. Lots are only £1-£2k. An issue if you have a couple of expensive bikes.
NFU Mutual were awesome for my contents insurance. Tailor made to meet my needs and very reasonable.

Ulysses

MGDriver wrote:

I've read the replies to your question Ulysses, and I don't know if your sorted yet or not, but I had a good experience with Direct Line. I insured two bikes with them as part of our house insurance, the bikes were individually listed on the Pedal Cycles part of the policy, both insured for stated values of £750 & £1,800.
Fast forward 18 months and at 5am one morning I'm awoken by a noise from downstairs as two scrotes are helping themselves to the bikes from the garage, they got the expensive one, the noise was them dropping the cheaper one on my classic MG grrr! They got away with one bike.
Phone call to DL, explained it all to them and their policy was: as the bike was stolen from the house/garage they would class it as a contents claim and I could claim for the bike plus any additional parts I have added to it, within reason, no questions asked, this meant I could claim for the wheels I had added but not got around to updating the insured value, with this I had to pay the £50 excess. If I had made it a Pedal Cycle claim I could only have claimed the agreed value (£1700), but only paid £15 excess.
They never questioned the garage locks, or have not since. They paid the full value of the bike and accessories I claimed for (less the excess) and I a had a new bike in 10 days (They supplied the bike from Wheelies, but I knew what I wanted so I didn't really mind where it came from, and they gave a cash settlement for the rest)
So in short Direct Line looked after me well.

Helpful info thanks. Sorry to hear about the loss, fking shite bags!

Managed to speak to someone with some sense on the third try. They confirmed as my garage is attached to the house and as long as its locked if there is a theft, anything up to £50k is covered ... no requirement for fancy bike chains, ground anchors, etc, no questions asked (pretty much anyway).
I questioned the values of the bikes and contents and the agreed cover and he said as long as the garage is locked, they pay.
I asked about the Pedal Cycle cover (Section 4) and he said its an additional cost ... for the remainder of my policy it would be £34, which would cover the bike away from my home. He did say that the bike would need to be locked (with a suitable security device) to an un movable object, ie bike railing, lamp post, etc. Suitable security device being any bike chain or cable with a lock.
Still, for peace of mind I've already beefed up the security on both access points and am getting an alarm. I guess if I can slow them down and get them to make as much noise as possible the theives might give up trying. Either way, its all insured which is th eimportant thing!

sofaboy73

to the OP, i can confirm that direct line are good if the unfortunate happens and your pride & joy gets nicked.

i had a custom build stolen in a burgalry last year. Bike was in the house and as such was just classified as general contents on which there is a single item limit of £15K (the bike wasn't individually listed on the policy in anyway)

when it came to the claim, they sent a loss adjuster round due to the "unusally high value" of the bike and he was satisfied with some of the boxes the parts for the build came in and rceipt for the frame as proof of ownership (all photos of bike had also been nicked as on a lap top that went). I was asked to submit a spec list for the bike with rrp amnd from there they offered me a replacement. i wasn't happy with what offered and after negotiation settled on a bike i was happy with as the replacem,ent. then elected to take the cash equivalent so i could custom build again

overall, i was very impressed with DL