I’m obviously looking at getting my bike insured and have been looking at a few insurance websites and also the British Cycling website as well, but I’m left with a few questions.

The frame is a few years old (I bought it second-hand in 2004), but the parts attached to it aren’t. Some are brand new, and others are new(ish) from the FS forum here.

What would I do about valuing the bike, do I just go through and find out the cost to buy all the bits new and insure it for that, or do I insure it for what I paid for it? I ask this as most offer a new for old on bikes less than 3 years old. The second part of this is also a quandary as the frame is over 3 years old, but the rest isn’t.

How did you insure your bike if you built it up from parts. What insurance company did you go through? any problems due to insuring a bike that is a mish-mash of parts?

Thanks for all and any help.

Photograph the bike and also write down a list of the parts and values against them. The age of the parts isn’t necessarily important – its not what you could sell your bike for, or what you paid for it, its what it would cost for you to replace it, thats what you are insuring – the price of a replacement.

Now go and talk to your local friendly bike shop and ask them if they could provide you with an insurance valuation for your bike. Now of course they’d rather gouge their own eyes out with spoons, but before they say no tell them – “don’t worry, I’ve already listed all the parts and values I’ll email them to you so that you can copy and paste them and print it out on headed paper.” Then buy a few odds and ends like inner tubes and nicnaks on your way out (low cost stuff tends to have the higher margin for the shop so that’ll make them happy) and when you go back to collect your valuation take a packet of jaffa cakes with you.

I’d second what maccruiskeen advises, pretty much spot on (although beer is a good alternative to Jaffa Cakes)

Having had my bike stolen last year the insurance company took my eclectic mish mash of bits and bobs and found a similar spec new bike for sale, then offered me the value less my excess

@Kona TC, who did you get insurance from? I’ve looked at a couple or three so far and from what I can gather, they have no problem with bikes that have been custom built, but it doesn’t seem to matter on the age of the components. The age of the bike is determined by the age of the frame, with 10% of the value being decreased for every year the frame has been ‘of this world’.

This causes a problem for me as the frame is old, but not the rest of the bike, thus there is an unbalance in what they would consider it worth, and what it is.

Is there maybe a specialist insurance company that deals with retro bikes, etc. that would be able to take this into consideration?

taken from the Cycleguard website

If the bike frame is older than 3 years old, depreciation would be taken into account (10% for every year from the date of manufacture). It is important to note that depreciation is applied to the entire bike and not just the parts – the age of the bike is decided by the age of the frame, regardless of whether newer parts exist on the bicycle

M&S was always a great one due to their £4k un named items insured on your ploicy inc bikes. This is believe is limited to £1k on bikes now.

I have mine insured on the house cover, 4 bikes, 9.5K and it costs about £80/year.

IME you just need a picture of the bike (preferably with you in) and then you just get your mates in the local bike shop to put a replacemnet price quote together for you, clearly like for like, new for old.

If its bespoke tell them you dont want a replacement as its unsuitable, you want a cash settlement. M&S actually told me they couldnt supply a bike as did the shop they used to supply replacements (who incidently said they couldnt up-spec a bike as they had 800 bikes a week to ship out!!! – all through an insurance company deal!) so they just paid out.

Bespoke insurance is rediculous, its on your house insurance or nothing in my experience

bland, which insurance company you with as my premium is £350 just for the bikes.

Take the money you would have spent on the insurance premium.

Put it on a horse.