My mate who lives in Yeovil (shudder) has had permanent loan of my 1997 Marin Bear Valley for a few years. Essentially it was surplus to my requirements and he has a history of selling his bikes when skint, so I ‘gave’ it to him on the basis that I retained ownership so he couldn’t sell it without my permission. He’s been riding it to work as I had it set up as a commuter with road tyres.

A few weeks ago some scrote broke into his shed (its actually a proper 20 foot bomb shelter with 2 foot thick walls, built in the 30’s, but with a sadly less than adequate door) and stole it.

Anyway he claimed on his home insurance, sent them some photos I emailed him, and wrote them a long email explaining how the bike had been maintained very well and had been modified over the years so that the closest current Marin bike would be a £900 road bike (hybrid? – not sure).

So they sent him a cheque for £700! Only cost me £600 in the first place so well done AA Insurance!

I am with M & S myself after recommendations from STW, but for anyone looking at new insurance the AA seem pretty sound if this is anything to go by.

Sounds like fraud to me if you paid less than what they paid you. Someone,s been telling porkies on their insurance claim…

Nope – not at all.

I had a bike I a paid £150 for and upgraded with a few bits stolen. value maybe £300 tops. Insurers offered me a £1000 bike after I gave them a genuine description of it. No fibbing

New for old / like for like

Sounds like fraud to me, op implies it was not significantly upgraded, but email claimed it was.

Hope it is fraud, f**kers get away with under paying thousands of people each year!

Yeah, that works :/

We just got a £1000 bike to replace a £600 bike bought in 2005. Like for like. No fraud.

Tell your mate you want your bike back.

Could be double fraud…are borrowed items covered?

yeah surely you should claim it on your insurance as off-site?

Win some, lose some – I think the force remains in balance.

Getting robbed sucks – snippy whiny cock bags may wish to wee on your chips – I’ll hold mine for the robbers chips and high five you with my free hand 🙂

Uh, he bought the bike in 1997 for £600. That was probably a real nice hardtail back then, the sort of thing that would cost at least a grand now. If the insurance company promise a ‘new equivalent’ I certainly wouldn’t be happy with a £250 RRP hardtail. Doesn’t sound like fraud to me.

glad to hear you got a result out of a bad sitch mate don’t listen to the whiny keyboard warriors they probably have no real life offline and its about time we heard some good news after a bikes been stolen instead of “insurance says no” would have been better if it wasn’t stolen though

cannondaleking – Member
…would have been better if it wasn’t stolen though

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Errr, no it wouldn’t! He’d have had a crappy old hardtail which notionally belonged to his mate, instead of which he has several hundred smackeroonies 🙂 Result!

fair point cash towards a new bike is always a winner 😆

Might have got a bit of cash for it, but he’ll end up paying for it in increased premiums for the next few years.

TBH this was my ‘best’ bike until 2006, but upgraded/modified/maintained by us both since then. No fraud involved – it was in better than new spec and very good condition; he expected to get next to naff-all from claiming. The bike was, in reality, his although we both maintained the fiction that I retained ownership purely to prevent him (or his wife) selling it for next to nothing when things got tight. So he got the payment the AA saw as appropriate under the circumstances.

Had I known how much that was I would have insisted on him buying a better bike than he did to replace it with but he did have some pressing debts to settle too.

new for old when mine was stolen. To top it off when the bike was recovered and returned to me by police over a year later I told the insurance co they can pick up at anytime. They told me to keep it, stripped it down and sold on the parts. 😉