Point taken and I feel the same way but for the sake of anyone who stumbles over this thread looking for advice; i think you will find you are completely and utterly wrong. A bike on any sort of bike-to-work scheme belongs totally to ones employers until it/one is no longer on the scheme, and if push comes to shove one may even loose any upgrades one has put on post-hoc.
Where's Norm when one needs him....?
I understand how the cycle to work scheme works and to the letter you are correct, sorry for the poor wording in my original statement, but really so long as you make your payments I can't ever see it being a problem. In eight months he will get the option to pay the final payment or lease it for another 3 yr at £0/mth regardless of whether it is the original bike or not. I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over accepting a new bike and keeping the old one unless the insurance company asked for it.
There is nothing underhand or fraudulent in this. He gives the insurance the official report of the reputable expert and they will decide how to proceed. So long as the bike is replaced by an equivalent or higher standard bike cycle to work will be happy.
I'm new around here so I haven't met Norm. Looking forward to it with some trepidation. :-)
I hope reading this people understand that I am just trying to impart some honest advice on how my own experience panned out. Twice with my bikes being written off by an insurance company and once with property belonging to my employer, similar to cycle to work scheme, being stolen.
I hope you agree with that. The OP should listen to all advice and decide for himself how he wants to proceed.