Cheapest lock with decent insurance

tangled_metal

I'm planning on getting a new bike worth up to £800 (well might go a bit over ever better specs creep in). It will be locked up at work during the day so I fully expect it to be where I left it when I go home. I am however thinking of belt and braces approach with it after my last bike was stolen. That is adding it specifically to my house insurance, possibly buying specific bike insurance as well and getting a new lock with insurance included. I understand you can get it at different values with the likes of Kryptonite locks.

That is the main question is what lock to go for? The bike is £800 say new but I will add / improve it with anything from mudguards, rack, decent bottle cages and upgrades. Without realising it the value could creep up to say £1000. Can anyone let me know the cheapest lock with insurance to cover this? Alternatively another recommended lock irrespective of the price (within reason of course).

At the moment I think I have an Abus amoured cable lock, a simple cable lock from Abus or similar company and an old U lock from Abus I think. That was a silver sold secure level if not a gold back in the day but obviously now it is probably not worth a bronze rating.

Initialised

For insurance purposes you need a "Sold Secure" rated lock.

For security two interlocked D-Locks combined with an armoured cable should do the trick and you'll be covered so long as one of the D-Locks is "Gold" rated.

pinkteapot

Please don't buy multiple insurance policies. Not only is it a waste of money but it can get unnecessarily complicated if you need to claim:

http://www.burges-salmon.com/sectors/fi ... nities.pdf

Your two or three insurers will waste time arguing between themselves about which will pay out, or how they split the claim. You'll need to check each policy you take carefully as some may contain a clause saying they won't pay out if anyone else is covering the same risk. If it turns out that all your policies say this, none will pay!

Have you been burnt in the past by a poor quality insurer who wriggled out of a claim? If so, resolve it by looking for a good quality, well-rated insurer, rather than by having lots of insurers.

Most insurance policies will specify the quality of lock they need, usually using the SoldSecure rating system.

My bike has a replacement cost of £700 and my insurer requires a SoldSecure silver rating for bikes of £500-1,000. I got a gold-rated lock so that my bike is 'over-protected'. It's about making it more effort than it's worth to steal, compared to other bikes parked around yours.

I have a gold-rated lock and have just got Pitlock security skewers for my wheels and seat, so they can't be removed. I used to put a second lock through my front wheel but now don't bother as these skewers are a better solution (my second lock was a cheap one that anyone could break anyway).

My D-lock is the Abus Granit X-Plus 54. I wanted either that or the Kryptonite New York and Amazon just happened to knock the Abus down in price. It's happily secured my baby for almost two years now.