Our insurance is up for renewal and need a good home policy with the growing bike collection covered.
Some people have recommended M and S.
Does anyone have any other suggestions.

my recent experience says stay clear of nationwide

Probably depends on the value of individual bikes.. Many companies have limits per bike

Bikes are valued form £1000 to £3000.
Daughter now has 2 race bikes and training bike!!!

LV and Aviva were best when I renewed recently

Don’t forget to consider total cover.

I’ve just gone for Zurich – as they had a far higher total cover for bikes (£5000) while Aviva would only cover me for £2500 total.

I used a broker to find me the best deal matching my requirements. May have cost me a small fee over a web-search but as I saved over £300 compared to M&S I didn’t complain.

I’m still struggling to find anyone who will touch insuring the canoes as well, since Direct Line stopped….

I am going to go via broker and see.

Matt – I used these dudes:

http://www.lansdowne-woodward.co.uk/personal.html
Jane was the lady that sorted me out.

(they used to advertise in cycle mags which is why I started using them).

Can’t see any reason why canoes should be an issue. Good luck!

Just done mine with the AA. 1500 limit on bikes. That covered 3 of mine. As it’s new for old second hand gear needs insuring at full new replacement value so that meant one named bike. Got full accidental damage and cover away from home. Still nearly 100 less than I was paying. Cover away from home is not just bikes anything to a set value. Call centre was good to. Very impressed.

Speak with Darren Thomas at pedal over.co.uk. He did a great job for us after a recommendation on here…

Switched from M&S to Aviva here following an earlier thread. Multiple bikes, in garage, very similar to old M&S cover.
All sorted. The cover doesn’t quite seem enough through the website but they have cheap extensions when you speak to someone

Just renewed with Yourcover (Allianz) – there’s a limit of £1k per bike/£5k total unless you specify them. More expensive bikes require a decent lock (sold secure rated depending on value) but they were nearly half what M&S wanted.

Pedalcover. No upper limit on bike value, you choose the shop for replacement and covered away from home. Less than half M&S renewal (which wasn’t high enough individual value for 2 4.5k bikes)

^ Bloody predictive, I meant pedalcover.co.uk too.

Cheers guys.
I will post where I end up going.

I got all mine covered under NFU Mutual.

@crispin

It is more a cost issue – £42 per year per boat, have to be indoors, no cover away from home unless indoors (eg on car) and not new for old, with excess of £150 per boat. And the boats are only worth £500 Max..

I have gone from M&S to the AA named bikes £3000/1500 about £200 in southeast 3 bed semi

I used Confused.com rather than stw.com – found me the best deal. ( not spam, true!)

I thought Directline homeplus was pretty easy/good but ours are not uber expensive ones.

Another strong recommendation for Darren at Pedalcover (underwritten by AXA).

Saved hundreds and when a boo boo was made about the listed status of the house and another £90 was due from AXA, he covered it even though no fault of his (I still feel bad about that)

So far John Lewis is much lower than M and S but have emailed Pedal Cover after so many good recommends!!

I swapped from m and s to pedalcover just before Xmas. Much cheaper and better cycle cover. Darren was really helpful. Mark

I’m just looking at mine, M&S have just charged me nearly £350 just on bike cover which is over 5% of their value. 🙁

The AA quoted a lot less for the nearly the same cover but the issue with that is the bikes aren’t insured if locked in the car – M&S said they would cover this.

When I spoke to the AA and tried to point out that they were encouraging me to put the bikes on the roof where they were likely to be nicked instead of inside the deadlocked alarmed tinted windowed estate car, locked to the frame with the beefiest lock I can get the response was ‘yes sir, but they’re not as secure inside the car…’

Will try some of the above on monday, thanks 🙂

Just checked mine what I got fru Confused.com – Hastings Direct, 4 bikes over a grand insured as specified items- <£100 per year.

likely to be nicked instead of inside the deadlocked alarmed tinted windowed estate car

I had the same conversation. Their reasoning was that once the bikes get to a certain value (£1500) it becomes easier to nick the car as well as the bikes, the car being a convenient way to transport the bikes. Still doesn’t make sense to me as I doubt bike thieves are also skilled car thieves.

NFU Mutual for me, very helpful and covered all bikes, one being very expensive to replace.

I used Confused.com rather than stw.com – found me the best deal. ( not spam, true!)

Trouble is you then have to read the fine print on each of the cheapest quotes and check bikes are covered. When the same handful of names come up time and time again, this is a quicker solution!

Admiral quoted lowest for me this year.

Trouble is you then have to read the fine print on each of the cheapest quotes and check bikes are covered. When the same handful of names come up time and time again, this is a quicker solution!

It’s not that difficult to find out if they cover bikes as specified items. Different names come up every time, simply because what is good cover for one person, may not be for another. Which is why I do my own investigation rather than following what someone else has done.
Was with Zurich for a few years until I went to price-comparison and found out I was paying £200 too much!

But ‘cover for bikes’ varies.

Some will cover in a shed or outbuilding (garage included) and some will only cover in house.
Some will only cover in a shed that is ‘secure’, and that the bike is locked by some gold approved unobtanium lock.
Some, despite the rest of the policy being new for old, won’t on sports equipment or specified items.
Some will cover locked on vehicle, some say it has to be in vehicle.
etc etc.

This is where some knowledge and experience from other folk comes in

Agree with Matt – headline info only tells half the story, aggregated totals, stipulations on locks, cover away from home, new for old or wear and tear etc etc all mean looking through the policy books for each insurer. Then it’s not just bikes – what about other expensive stuff that not everyone covers. I did a Confused quote when mine was up, I went through the 5 cheapest, none of whom could either offer cover at all, or were vastly more expensive than my renewal by the time I’d made the requisite changes.

I tried a few recommended from here with similar results, then just accepted my M&S renewal!

matt, have you looked at joining bcu/sca which provide insurance as part of the membership?

It is more a cost issue – £42 per year per boat, have to be indoors, no cover away from home unless indoors (eg on car) and not new for old, with excess of £150 per boat. And the boats are only worth £500 Max..

Then probably not really worth insuring, unless you are someone who, for example, pays insurance for their mobile phone.

Ok to conclude I went with pedal cover in the end as they seems the best with reference to bikes.
They also beat JohnLewis and M and S.
In terms of bikes they will cover all my bikes away from home and on accidental damage cover.
Basically it came out at £450 including up £15000 of bike and personal belongings cover away from home. I don’t have to specify bikes but we discussed the issue of the upgrade of components adding value and he suggested taking photos and getting a valuation when serviced.
Also included was excess insurance that can also be applied on my car insurance.
Thanks to everyone who recommended Darren. A really nice guy and he rides a bike!!

Just gone with Pedalcover after reading this thread and am paying a similar amount for similar cover to DCL.
Seems a pretty good price for the cycle cover on its own tbh, The home insurance is a bonus!

Had a quick look at Pedalcover, will try them in a few months when my renewal comes in as it seems like a good cover option for bikes. Any pay out restrictions or limits for storage of bikes in garage/shed?

Bikes covered up to 10k, no limit on individual bike or need to specify. Bikes need to be secured but there is no need to have a certain standard of lock, ground anchor etc…
No 2 year limit on the ‘new for old’ & replacement at shop of your choice.

It would seem like a remarkable deal if pedal cover are providing 15k worth of worldwide personal possessions cover including accidental damage bundled in with decent home insurance a day a better price than the competition.

That’s a blockbuster of a deal for sure and will have everyone else out of business pretty quickly, does make you wonder why they don’t put the actual policy on their website though. 🙄

When insuring your bikes should you quote the value as what the equivalent replacements would be if you were to buy them all new??
What if you bought a frame 2nd hand and put all new parts on it?