Bike home insurance but no purchase receipts?

Is there a way to insure bikes you’ve bought second hand and not got a receipt for? Norwich Union say they will need receipts in the event of a claim.

Get your LBS to do a written valuation

i still need to do this as ive four bikes i built up in bits and the lbs wanted 80 quid to do a written valuation on them. seemed a bit steep to me 🙁

Take photo’s of them all and write a spec list, only bother with the costly valuation if anything happens to them and you need to claim.

All our bikes are custom builds so a pain to explain a value for them in the event of anything happening, what I’ve done is whenever one of them goes into a shop for some work I’ve done the work of listing and valuing all the parts myself and then asked the LBS to verify it rather than ask them to spend an afternoon googling. Easiest is to email it to them so they can then print it out on their own letterhead for you.

Just had to claim for one of mine some toerag nicked, ins company were happy with photo as proof of ownership……..

since we’re all vain, it shouldnt be too hard to find photos of your beloved bike with you on it, close ups showing spec and parts, in your shed/kitchen etc. That should all be sufficient, together with a written valuatio nif neccessary. When I claimed through M&S for a Brompton (with a few additional parts specced by me) they were happy just with a written list from me. Berkshire Bikes looked after the replacement for me, and very friendly they were too.

anyone made a claim from m and s without receipts ?

^ me.

not that i need one or ever will (goes off to touch lots of wood) but handy to know

Detailed photos of the bikes and a photo of you riding it. That’s what they told me.

I had a bike I built nicked a couple of years back and they were okay about everything apart from the wheels they couldnt believe the wheels cost more than the frame. I emailed them a photo of the bike and a close up of the wheels and a screenshot of the webpage with the pricelist and they paid up without a murmur.

Thanks for the replies. I’ll speak to them about it later and see what they say.