Been using M&S for a couple of years, the one instance when I've had to claim with them I got a terrific response from them that helped to make an event I was keen to forget quickly forgetable. So I've been a very happy bunny with them
However, renewals due. Are they still pretty much stand-alone in terms of the deal they offer, or have any other insurers come up with anything to compete?
Direct Line were ace when the shed got done over recently and I lost 2 bikes...
Direct Line used to do my GF's car insurance and their behaviour was indefencible
But is their house insurance deal comparable to M&S?
The £4k item limit across the board (no specific arrangements to make for bikes, laptops etc) for instance? and applying they 4k to items away from the home too?
yes for some things no for others, but they were ace when I had trouble and thats when it really counts.
House was burgled last year, direct line were brilliant.
Shed was done this year, Direct Line was brilliant.
Both times lost a lot of high value stuff, can only go on how they handled it all.
Well worth the effort of getting a quote from in my opinion.
There's a recent thread on this...I switched from M&S to ING.
Interesting that ING have exactly the same online form for quotes - going to have a dabble and see what they're offering
I recently switched from M&S to Barclays and saved about £100. The level of cover (i.e. the monetary value of bikes in the garage cover) isn't so great but that shouldn't be a problem as I don't have any mega expensive bikes. I haven't made a claim so I can't comment on how good they are on that score.
What I like about M&S is the non-specificness of the cover, i'm interested because I want to cover the bikes but I don't like all the niggly exclusions you get with bike specific cover - only locks from the approved list, only secured in a certain way, at a certain time. Some cycle specific cover is no reassurance at all. But I've also had the bike covered by home contents providers (specifically covered as bikes) only to find out they were only covered while they were in the house!
I've just switched from M&S to...
...M&S!
I got my renewal through and out of curiosity ran a quote through the website which came out cheaper by over £100. Even adding in buildings which I currently get elsewhere still brought it in less than the contents renewal quote.
So I rang them up and asked if they could adjust the renewal. Fella on the phone was dead honest, he just said take out the cover through the website and cancel your existing policies.
Which I've just done this lunchtime, saving me about £150 a year.
Even after shopping around, I still couldn't find anyone to beat my M&S quote on an exact like-for-like basis.
Nice. I'll give it a shot
AA was the best deal I came across when researching last time, cheaper than M&S and from what I could see the cover was just as good, if not better.
Just had 2 bikes nicked from my shed so I will report back as to how good they are at dealing with claims!
Co Op insurance were 50% cheaper for both contents and buildings and offered great cover.
Bike worth 3k was 25 quid to insure in and away from home.
very happy bunny today with M&S, they have paid out in full cash.
GreenBee
£5000 per non-specific covered - £260 cheaper than MnS
tenacious_doug, very interested in your reply as i've just taken out ins with the AA too...
When I recently renewed AA were slightly cheaper than M&S, however I was told that they do not insure bikes 'new for old' unlike M&S. Therefore I went with M&S as it would be good to get a new bike if one was stolen!
I tried Greenbee as well, but for some reason their quote was a lot higher than M&S 
Indeed, I just ran a Greenbee quote through for comaparison to M&S and it's come out double the cost.
Which is amusing given they're both underwritten by AXA.
Settled with M&S in the end. The renewal they were quoting at first seemed really quite high, which is why as was shopping around, but it turns out they had mistakenly quoted as if I was living in, and insuring both my current and previous address. Just a slip up with the transfer of records to AXA as the move was in the last few months. So the premium dropped from 430 and 230 for Premium Contents and away from home cover. Wasn't getting quotes/cover that was any better from any of the others, if fact its less than I was paying for cycle insurance alone not so long ago, and its not like my bikes are super pimp, so staying put.
My recent claim has now been settled, very pleased with how it was handled, so I recommend AA very highly! It was a week past Thursday that I submitted full information to them so that is just over a week to fully sort! I was offered the option of a replacement bike for one of the stolen ones, which I declined as I would rather buy locally, they offered me full cash value, no nonsense about trying to offer me their discounted price, nor did they try to force a replacement on me. On the other one they admitted that they would struggle to replace directly therefore just offered me cash.
Overall very pleased and would highly recommend- I am with the AA though they are just a broker (though I think it is the AA policy that is good for bikes, not the individual insurers, if that make sense), my policy is with Allianz and it was them I had to deal with, they were polite, helpful and friendly. Allianz also use a 3rd party, homeserve, to value your claims, again they were polite, helpful and friendly in my dealings with them. They also seemed to have a good enough knowledge about bikes to have a reasonably discussion with them about what was and wasnt reasonable in terms of replacement.
Overall 2 thumbs up from me, if you are looking for insurance for your bikes I would definetely recommend checking out the AA
thanks tenacious dog. was hoping for a reply from you and thankfully its good news for me!
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