It’s about time I got round to insuring my bikes properly as there’s quite a lot of money’s worth (a few multi-thousand pound bikes – that’s a bit scary putting it like that) in them now… so a few questions:

– I need to sort out my contents insurance as well, and M&S used to be recommended here before. I believe they’ve lowered their limits, so who should I go with now?

– I’d like cover away from home, etc – i.e., stored somewhere else on holiday, locked in/on the car (or should car insurance cover that one?). Is this normal?

– The bikes I have are not off-the-shelf models. 2 of them are ones that were bought frame only and built up about a year ago, and now you can’t buy the frame only (only full bike). The full bike versions now have a slightly better spec than mine as well. So what value do I insure them to, and what would I be claiming as a replacement if they were to be stolen?

Thanks

M&S will still cover your bikes but you would have to specify each one separately and then your premium would be loaded accordingly but remember they still do all the necessary away from home options as well as covering them as long as they are locked to your roofbars or towball carrier mount and that in turn is locked to the car.
Specialist bike insurance is horrendously expensive (£100 for one £1.5k bike for a year) and there are so many bits hidden in the small prints ie some even when they are inside your car have to be locked with gold secure locks to the body of the car and covered from view-how impractical is that! At least M&S (I rang them before taking out the policy) stated that as long as you take reasonable steps regarding security you will be covered.
Just make sure you read the small print or ring up with a list of questions and make a note of the name/time/questions and answers should they ever try and renege on a claim.

The problem with that is how do I even go about deciding on the value of my bikes?

Let’s take one for example that is a Specialized S-Works Epic frame from last year that I built up to my own spec, that is now not available to buy in the UK as a frame only. How do I know what to insure it for?

Simple as add up price of the parts to rebuild one from scratch for each bike and keep a copy and photographs of the actual bike with your reciepts for the insurance should it ever be required for a claim.

Your LBS will do a replacement certificate of the bike for your insurance in the event of a theft, keep a copy and forward one to your insurance company

– I need to sort out my contents insurance as well, and M&S used to be recommended here before. I believe they’ve lowered their limits, so who should I go with now?

You can still go with M&S, they will insure seperate items up to the value of 10k each, bikes valued at under 1k are included in the policy. I looked into insuring with M&S – but i found out that the AA were a bit cheaper for me. Still have to list the bike seperatly though, but this does mean your covered away from the home as long as its locked up with an apropriate sold secure lock. It doesnt matter if its a full custom build, just tell them its value – and take lots of photos of it and all the parts on it.

what would I be claiming as a replacement if they were to be stolen?

usually its a bike of the eqivilent value – the insurance company generally wont care what bike you get to replace them. some companies will force you to go through a specific bike shop, some just give you a cheque in the post.

as a side note – both M&S & AA wont cover bikes bought through the CTW scheme…..

similar situation a few months ago. Much cheaper to get it with house and contents policy. Good ones that were on my final shortlist were M&S, Co-op, and NFU. Slightly different terms and so and, and ymmv so check out what suits you best. E.g. co-op would have been best for me but needed date of house build (!!) which I cundn’t give them. NFU, with bikes, and house and contents, we 1/3 what I’d previously been paying for house insurance only 😯 so a great deal overall.

for bike value just add up all the parts on the bike at RRP!