Valuing a bike for household insurance

neeb

So I'm going to switch my home insurance to someone like M&S who cover bikes up to a high value. My two best bikes are both built by myself from separately bought framesets, wheels, groupsets etc. Apparently I can put "custom made" on the form under make & model, but I'm not sure how to value the various bits for replacement.

So for example my best bike has a 2013 Scott Foil Team Issue frame. Scott updated the Foil this year and the equivalent Team Issue Foil frameset now costs silly money, £3000... I paid a little over half that for my frame. Similarly, I have a Campagnolo groupset from before the latest major revamp, and the equivalent current version is now more expensive.

If I just tot up the cost of replacing the bike with current equivalent new parts it comes to a figure that is considerably more than I paid for it, even allowing for inflation (inflation in general at least, maybe not bike inflation.. ). That seems to be what M&S are advising me to do, but it seems wrong somehow..

Take a more extreme example - what if I had a top-end Trek Madone from 2003 - would I really price the cost of replacement according to what the top-end Madone costs now?

webboo

I would be tempted to base it on what it cost as in most cases you can get better for the money each year. For example you will get a better bike for three grand now than than you could 5 years ago.
In a lot of cases the insurance company will try and get you a replacement as they can usually source things cheaper than the value.
So if you have a Scott Foil they will generally offer you the same if it's still made.

brettjmcc

neeb, I had the same thing when I switched to John Lewis insurance last year. The person I spoke to on the phone was also a cyclist and told me I should be realistic to value all my bikes even though I have built them from framesets myself. He told me to base it on the rrp of what I would have to pay if I had to replace again. Similar to you, I paid probably half of what my GF01 was on rrp; I've based it though on getting a new one if I had to.

fudgey

I had this last year too when they asked what are they worth. Second hand i had no idea, so gave them the cost of a brand new one.

neeb

Thanks all. Yes, seems like the usual thing is to cost it based on the price of replacement new.

Webboo wrote:

I would be tempted to base it on what it cost as in most cases you can get better for the money each year. For example you will get a better bike for three grand now than than you could 5 years ago.

Not sure about this these days for the higher-end stuff. I think this would have been true 5 years ago, and maybe it is still true for entry/mid level, but the cost of the top level stuff seems to have sky rocketed in the last 2 or 3 years...

mamba80

When i last looked MS was super expensive for hi value bikes?

J Lewis was much better value but then i ve a few bikes - i just put down what it cost me, balanced with like for like replacement, JL advised me to have photos of custom bikes.

pblakeney

Replacement value, regardless what you paid.

neeb

The thing is though, what are you replacing? If the frame and compenents have been superceded, you can't get them new any more. And it's difficult to know if a top end frame from 3 years ago is equivalent to a current top end one or to a current lower tier one, especially since the prices have risen considerably. My take on it is that most of the supposed "improvements" that justify the price hikes are marketing and that equivalent high end frames, wheels etc simply cost much more now than they did a few years ago, so I think I'll insure for that. But I did a similar exercise to this a couple of years back (on exactly the same bike), and it seems that the cost of replacement has risen by about 30 or 40%! Maybe says a lot about the bike industry and price inflation. I know that this isn't the case for entry and mid level, where you probably get as good or better value now than before.

pblakeney

From your OP.
Latest Foil model, and latest Campag group set, or you will get a lesser bike as a replacement. FWIW, with upgrades and price increases, my "good" bike is now worth double what I originally paid. It would be silly to insure for the original cost.