HELP! Having a nightmare

[pinkkaz]

I'm back! In the end there was a swift recovery by husband and we got the slow train to Paris and then the Eurostar. We walked extremely slowly between stations in Paris and I carried everything! Husband didn't look like much of a gentleman making me into a packhorse, but luckily I had a good quality rucksack and just loaded everything else onto my bike which was groaning a bit under the weight.

Insurers are Columbus, but I haven't given up on them yet - I'm about to submit my claim form and all receipts so we'll see what they actually pay out on. I'm going to submit the eurostar receipt for the bikes and see if they pay it. The medical assistance company (who were great) did put the fact that we had bikes into our report so hopefully all will be well. After all, they do have a responsibility to get all your luggage home, and surely the bikes count as "luggage"?

Husband is fine. Diagnosis was Pneumothorax and he had a check up today in England. Apparently he can even ride his bike now as long as he takes it easy and only does as much as he feels he can.

As for the recouperation holiday, we are going away for a long weekend in August up north - he's going to take his guitar and we are just going to chill!

Thanks again all - it was nice getting all the suggestions through when I was seriously stressed!

 

[Arch]

I'm back! In the end there was a swift recovery by husband and we got the slow train to Paris and then the Eurostar. We walked extremely slowly between stations in Paris and I carried everything! Husband didn't look like much of a gentleman making me into a packhorse, but luckily I had a good quality rucksack and just loaded everything else onto my bike which was groaning a bit under the weight.

Well, the important thing is, YOU knew why you were carrying everything. Tip for anyone in the same position though - having a walking stick of some sort makes an otherwise invisible difficulty a bit more visible...

Anyway, glad to hear he's well on the mend, and you got home relatively ok. I hope the insurers come up trumps...

 

[friedel]

Will your insurance company fly you back? If so, why not just throw the bikes on the plane and lump the extra cost if you have to and then go after the insurance company when you get back. With a cab to and from the airport on both ends it shouldn't be too hard. The bike shop may box the bikes for you if you pay them a bit.

 

[Tynan]

good to hear it ended well, bravo, Columbus are pretty bargain insurance aren't they, you get what you pay for

eyeballing 3 weeks travel insurance for oz now for four people, anything from £30 up to £180, hmmm ...

 

[vernon]

good to hear it ended well, bravo, Columbus are pretty bargain insurance aren't they, you get what you pay for

eyeballing 3 weeks travel insurance for oz now for four people, anything from £30 up to £180, hmmm ...

It's not the price that determines the level of cover but the small print and exclusions. I'm not sure that many plain vanilla travel insurance packages irrespective of price would repatriate bikes - one wouldn't expect the travel insurance package to repatriate a car or motorcycle unless one paid a supplement for additional cover or one relied upon memebership of AA, RAC to get the vehicle recovered. Even so the cheaper recovery packages might not cover recovery from foreign climes.

 

[pinkkaz]

Yes, I was reading on another forum that the only insurance that does cover repatriation of bikes was CTC - haven't looked into it though so not sure if this is still the case.

I checked the small print for the things which were important to me, such as small excess and large amount of cover for things stolen. I wasn't even thinking of the medical side of things, just baggage being stolen or trains cancelled etc.

In the future I'll be going over policies with a fine-toothed comb! And yes, it was a bargain - a tenner! Glad I got it, I didn't for my last holiday and it was very last minute this time!

 

[Tim Bennet.]

You do have to shop around. We needed insurance that covered mountainbike racing in Poland. Snowcard said that was exactly the sort of specialist cover they did, but quoted an outrageous premium and admitted their cover excluded world ranking events and national team members.

In contrast, Endsleigh said all cycle racing is covered by their 'Activity Insurance' (for about a quarter of the premium) and they would be proud to cover national team members.

So shop around, but caveat emptor.

 

[Perry]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. It's given us all something to check when taking out bike insurance.

Pleased it all got sorted.