Another Insurance Question..............

[smokeysmoo]

First off an admission, I've never actually had any form of specific bike insurance, there I've said it

I'm now seriously considering it though, and promptly tying myself in knots in the process

I've got a quote from ETA that seems to provide everything, but at a cost.

Should I go with British Cycling 'Ride' cover for the liability and legal, and then add my bikes separately? I can't get a quote for this though as you have to log into BC but I can't as I'm not a member. Which company does BC use? Then I might be able to get an idea by getting a direct quote from them.

Also, (probably a stoopid question), do I cover the bikes for what I paid, or do I cover them for the new replacement cost. Eg: My CAAD10 was £2800 when new but is NLA and a new CAAD12 with equivalent groupset is £3700!!!

My home insurance doesn't cover them, (even as named items). Or do I shop around for a new H&C policy with better limits?

I hate fuss and mither so I'm rapidly beginning to realise why I've never sorted all this out earlier

 

[MiK1138]

Change your home insurance to someone who will cover your bikes, join BC for their liability insurance , I'm with Admiral for home insurance and they will replace old for new as long as you give them details of the bike, My roadie is a 1 of kind custom build that they have agreed to cover for £2000 not sure what it costs though as Mrs Mik deals with all the non bike related expenditure

 

[smokeysmoo]

I'm with Admiral

Just done an online quote with Admiral, punched in all the info they asked for, went through every page, answered every question, gave them personal info I didn't feel was relevant, clicked on get quote at the end only to be told we can't quote for this please call us on blah blah blah blah blah

 

[vickster]

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/insurance-and-cycling.118438/

I'm with esure, although they only cover unnamed bikes up to £509. Was with AA before, cover up to £1500

Wiggle offer bike cover etc too. Pick up the phone, don't fanny around with online forms

 

[NorthernDave]

I think that BC provide cover through Cycleguard, although when I got a quote they were quite expensive compared to others and I bought a policy for my bike* through Velosure, who include breakdown cover. I have BC membership for the liability cover and the Halfords discount.

* - My household insurance at the time had a single bike maximum value of £1k which wasn't enough for the best bike. This has now been resolved by renewing elsewhere and all the bikes are now covered on the house insurance.

 

[Jenkins]

Have a look at Assetsure for theft/damage cover- https://cycles.assetsure.com/?introducer=209000

Turned out to be cheaper for me than adding the new bike as a named item to my household cover.

 

[smokeysmoo]

Pick up the phone, don't fanny around with online forms

Not so easy though when you work longer hours than most of these places seem to open!

 

[vickster]

Not so easy though when you work longer hours than most of these places seem to open!

They are usually open weekends as well

 

[byegad]

I was with the Coop insurance (CIS) for my house for several years paying extra to cover my more expensive bikes and trikes. Then out of the blue they set a £500 maximum payout for a bike, and no option to add more expensive bikes. Finding any house insurer to cover house, content and several very expensive bikes then proved almost impossible at any price.

Further investigation revealed that insuring 3 recumbent trikes, cheapest £2000+, most expensive £3000+ plus our other bikes and bike trailers with a specialist insurer would cost almost enough to buy the cheapest recumbent outright each year with the premium! Since then I have not insured my bikes and trikes and so far have saved sufficient cash to buy all three trikes out of the savings and still have enough over to go on holiday for a couple of weeks. I am covered, third party, with my British cycling membership but will have to stand the loss myself if I lose a trike or indeed trikes.

Our present house insurer covers up to 4 bikes at up to £350 each IIRC and that covers 3 out of the 4 other bikes we have. The fourth, long out of production, cost me £500+ and a similar replacement now runs to over £1200.

 

[confusedcyclist]

Indeed, specialist bicycle insurance probably isn't worth it, unless you ride way more bike than you can afford to ride in the first place. As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn't own anything you can't afford to replace out of pocket, rendering anything other than third party insurance for damage to another's property pointless. Realisitcally you really only need to cover yourself in case you damage some guys £120,000 Porsche, and not cover your own £700 bicycle.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a rare exception to that rule, or has a vested interest in Lloyd's insurance group.

I insured my bikes through home insurance because it was only £15 extra to cover 3 bikes total worth <£2,000. Before that, my bikes were not insured for many years, and the money I saved on not buying specialist insurance premiums meant I could buy a new bike every 3-4 years. The maths doesn't stack up after you calculate your premiums, excess and old for new or what ever onerous terms are in your insurance policy. Instead of pooling your risk with a bunch of other idiots, save yourself the cash, and self-insure low value goods. You never know, you might not lose your property at all, and you're quids in, not to mention the return on your capital you had saved in an ISA somewhere.

Buying insurance is literally a bet that something bad will happen to your loved possessions, instead of being careless with them in the hope that someone will pay out against your loss, you should just mitigate that risk with proper security measures and save your premiums.

It can be attractive to take that bet when your premium seems low, but if you think about it, it's no more different than buying an expensive car with a payment plan and paying through the nose for interest. 9 times out of 10, you are better off buying in cash.

 

[mattobrien]

As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn't own anything you can't afford to replace out of pocket, rendering anything other than third party insurance for damage to another's property pointless.

I own and house and am happy to say that I can't replace that out of pocket and similarly with cars. Hence having insurance in the first place

 

[confusedcyclist]

Congrats @mattobrien for missing the point.

Indeed, a modern house burning down would be a catastrophic loss to a typical plebeian. The investment of capital in a modern home is massive and expecting to replace it out of pocket would be financial suicide without insurance. The rule of thumb only works if your house is small and requires little in the way of resources to construct again, think mud hut/wooden shack traditional buildings, the kind of buildings people lived in before the industrial revolution and the insurance industry which began enabling people would deploy more capital into buildings than they might otherwise do considering the risk of loss.

A bicycle, used for sports, leisure or basic transportation doesn't provide comparable utility to a modern home. You are just getting screwed by the insurance industry. If you're suckered into buying more bike than you can afford, you get screwed at the till in the bike shop, and again when your premium is due. Insurance means you can buy more bike than you can afford, safe in the knowledge that it can be replaced, but this comes at a cost. Your initial capital outlay and premiums, and any insurance excesses.

Of course, it's a free world and you can spend your money on what you like. Buying no more than you can afford to replace in cash is simply the financially prudent and frugal option. Spend thrifts need not concern themselves with saving money. It's called a rule of thumb for a reason, its not a high precision catch all, for all people and all circumstances. If OP opens a thread asking how to save money on premiums, it makes sense suggest that the real savings can be made by buying only what you can afford to replace, and never buying insurance premiums in the first place.

EDIT:

As for the car, I might point that chances are you really can't afford to drive your car without financing it and insurance. However, there are plenty of cars I can afford to buy out pocket today with my savings, my choices would not reflect that of someone who was swayed to spend more because of insurance or financing.

However, I'm not suggesting you do not to carry car insurance, it's mandatory for a reason, you can do a lot of damage to another living being or their property with a 2 tonne contraption that moves at high speed, the kind of liabilities you might incur can bankrupt you. It's social duty to ensure you can cover any losses to others, hence why it's mandatory to insure any motor vehicle with third party insurance at the very least if it is on the road.

The whole point is, insurance makes you spend more on something than you might otherwise, hence if you wish to save money, apply the rule of thumb. If I were OP, I would cut my losses and simply run the risk of loss without insurance, instead saving my premiums in a savings account for my next bike, knowing full well I could replace my bikes in cash outright should the worst (but unlikely) happen. In OPs case, it might mean a downgrade at replacement, however even a Tiagra spec bicycle performs very well and can be had for very little, or buy top spec used. Call me cynical, but the insurance industry enables ownership of more luxurious items, but it's not a free service, delivered by the community, it's a profit driven enterprise and it's main objective is to transfer money from your pocket, to theirs. You can win the game by not playing it.

 

[Profpointy]

Umm @confusedcyclist - it's you who seems to have misse @mattobrien 's point. Most of us can't afford to replace our houses and hence get insurance. It's not clear if you are agreeing or disagreeing with that. Of course, over (say) 1000 years it would be cheaper to take the risk and self-insure.

The rest of your point is perfectly sound -never insure anything you can afford to replace.

And though the point of not buying anything you can't afford to replace is partly sound for many things but not entirely as a house or large capex item such as machinery or a crafstman's (total collection of) tools would likely not be an affordable thing to lose

 

[confusedcyclist]

@Profpointy ,To be fair to matt, I probably didn't make my point clear enough, I am in agreement, a typical modern house is worth insuring, in so far that the decision has been made to acquire capital intensive property.

Yes the insurance industry enables society to build bigger buildings or more complex machinery, and all the benefit that comes with those. It may make sense to do so, leveraging this effect to produce assets which increase returns on your initial investment, managing risk in this way means you can earn more, faster. However, for a typical consumer of goods, it doesn't make financial sense in so far you are using this leverage to consume more resources, not produce a greater return on your capital. In effect, insurance perversely incentivises you to spend more, faster, whilst taking on more (financial) risk.

Of course, not everyone's motivation is to conserve resources or maximise investment returns and using credit and insurance to leverage consumption is perfectly OK for someone who understands what they are doing. I was merely providing an alternative view point, which is more financially responsible, which is usually worthwhile if someone is concerned with saving their hard earned money.

 

[classic33]

What about those folk who have saved to buy their bikes/trikes?

I'd my mind set on one of four possibles. Even did a 500 mile round trip to view & test ride before buying.