The cheapest way to insure against theft is to add cover for
your bike onto your household insurance. Most home insurers offer cycle cover and
their premiums usually cost less than a stand alone bike policy. The downside is
there may well be a limit on the value of the bike that you can insure – normally
£500 or less.
As well as some selected insurance companies, cycling organisations, like the CTC
and BCF also offer stand-alone policies.
Quotes differ, and we can’t provide any info here, but some numbers you might find
useful are:-
:01203
551000
CTC: 0870 873 0067
BCF: 0161 230 2301
AUA Insurance: 0171 283 3311
Equine and Livestock: 07000 800800
Specialist insurers for Datatag users
Butterworths: 0151 427 3252
Datatag: 01482 222070
If you’ve any further insurance info, |
MEMBERS STORIES
From BIKEmagic member: Patrick Gould Subject: Bike Insurance Among other things, my firm used to be involved with home insurances. While we are now no longer involved in this class of business I thought the following might be of interest… If you own more than one bike it is probably best to insure with Norwich Union under the Home Plus contract. All you have to do is insure yourself for the highest value machine you own and every other bike in your ownership is automatically covered. I would recommend that readers check it out themselves. I currently have a whole range of bikes covered under my policy. As far as claims are concerned, they (cheerfully?) paid out for a new Hed Disk wheel when I inadvertantly trashed a very old one. Several of my friends have had accident damaged (custom)bikes replaced with little or no hassle at all. One thing though, you must have cast iron proof of ownership, receipts, photos etc especially if you have built the machine up yourself. If you do follow this note up please check everything thoroughly with your broker and if they claim not to know about it get them to check while you are there. If they do not cycle they probably think that a £250 machine is the dogs nads and that no one could ever own anything more expensive….this means they will not have investigated this aspect of cover. Finally, no company is perfect and maybe some people have had a bad time with NU but, from my experience claims have been trouble free. |
From BIKEmagic member: Stephen Whiteley Re: Insurance quotes online I can recommend Cycleguard http://www.cycleguard.co.uk You can get quotes for cover and make applications from the Web Site. Claim went in for my new Heckler on the Thursday, had the check the following Friday. Very quick, no excess – I just needed a written quote from the store. Cost is normal (for specialist insurance) at £200 for £1800 worth of insurance. |
From BIKEmagic member: Marinboy Re: Insurance My home contents insurance was with Eagle Star who wouldn’t cover my beloved Mt.Vision as it’s value exceeded their £500 policy limit. However, they were recently taken over by Zurich, who sent me a new policy booklet when the contents insurance was due for renewal.The booklet was a bit vague regarding bike cover so I rang up for a quote and was referred to an underwriter who agreed to insure it for £101.50 (this was on top of the contents insurance but still considerable less than the £178 the BCF would have charged – the bike being valued @ £2000). This is all risk cover, the only other stipulation being use of a D lock when unattended. However, when I rang back the following day to give them payment details etc, the quote details weren’t on file. As I did not know the name of the clerk I had talked to the previous day, or the name of the original underwriter, the matter had to be referred to the underwriters again, who this time refused to insure the bike at any price! Needless to say, I was not a happy chappy…but after much arguing, they finally relented and agreed to the cover. Moral? Be persistant, insurance policies appear to be flexible. Also, make note of who you talk to but don’t tell Zurich I mentioned this to you! |
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