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Bike theft insurance

Hi All

I have 2 bikes (valued at around £9,000 together) but am really struggling to find a viable insurance to cover my bikes. My home contents will not cover bikes over £2000 and the additional cost is £700 per year to specify them on the insurance.

Just wondering what others are doing and if you can point me in the direction of some good and reasonable insurers.

Thanks

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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6 comments

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paulfg42 | 9 years ago
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Self-insuring is what I'm inclining towards. 6 years of premiums would replace my best bike. Just have to make sure I never leave the garage door open!

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matthewn5 | 9 years ago
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gavcsmith have you thought of keeping your bikes elsewhere? The criminal scum obviously have your garage on their regular visit list.

I used to live in a corner house, burgled 6 times in 3 years, until the plod captured the one junkie who was doing it regularly.

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gavcsmith | 9 years ago
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I am not so sure i agree with the comments here. I've had 5 bikes stolen in 18months from a locked garage and there is no way i would have had the money 'to self insure' in such a short time.

I have my contents insurance (i rent) with Legal and General, through American Express. Best service ever from Legal and General. My bikes were stolen, i reported with Crime Number, copies of invoices etc was passed on to their fulfilment people, who got me 2 new bikes, with the spec i wanted in 2 weeks, from the day my bikes were stolen. All that for a £350 insurance for the year. There is no extra cost for bikes over £2k, which one of mine was. Yes they put my premium up this year, but for the service it was worth it and i am still not even at break even point on the cost to me for the insurance vs the replacement cost of my bikes

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movingtarget | 9 years ago
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BigglesMeister replied to movingtarget | 9 years ago
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I don't insure my bikes, it's not worth the bother. Then when they get pinched you don't have to deal with plod (crime number required for an insurance claim) and then run around getting quotes for replacements and then waiting for approval. All too much time and bother. Just don't leave your good bikes in a town centre, they will be pinched, chained or not. No prizes for guessing that theft hotspots = dedicated cycle parks. Stations are a special fave as the crims know you'll be off at 07:30 and not back again until 18:30.
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Looking at the philosophy of insurance it's just not worth it if you can afford the hit. Be realistic, even an expensive bike will not be worth anywhere near what you paid for it in a years time so put the insurance premiums in an account of your own and self insure.
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Insurance premiums are made up of ...
1. Insurers admin costs
2. Insurers profit.
3. Claims (replacement bikes).
4. Losses caused through less care being taken as it's insured.
5. Deliberate losses, i.e. I want a new bike, someone please pinch this one so I can get new for old.

If you self insure you only have to pay for 3. which will be less likely since you are taking more care of it!

Finally, make sure you put up a good sized privacy zone around the place you keep the bikes on Strava, otherwise it's so easy to track them back to storage and most Stravarians will put their bike model up against their profile so Mr thief knows where to look for the new super carbon wallet emptier. I see you have a Marvel Pinarello.

Bike thieves should be publicly flogged, beaten, flogged again, hung, drawn and quartered. They are a certain type of scum the world could well do without.

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levermonkey replied to BigglesMeister | 9 years ago
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BigglesMeister wrote:

Looking at the philosophy of insurance it's just not worth it if you can afford the hit. Be realistic, even an expensive bike will not be worth anywhere near what you paid for it in a years time so put the insurance premiums in an account of your own and self insure.

This is what I started to do 15 years ago. Each year I get a selection of insurance quotes take the middle one and put that amount of money into a high-interest (but instant-ish access) savings account.

After 5 years you want to see the upgrade you can afford! Oh! and the best bit, it's still your money.

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