The time has come to renew my contents insurance….. Currently with M&S (and have been for the previous 8years) but I now need to add buildings insurance so needing a whole new policy.

As per title I have 2 bikes, both at around the £4K mark to insure, plus a road bike of £1K. I currently have the M&S Gold cover, which gives cover for the bikes outside of the home, in the car, abroad etc etc.

Seeing as price comparison sites don’t seem to go in to such details, anybody got any recommendations, please?

Thanks-in-advance.

pedalcover

we use pedalcover

Pedal over – speak to Darren, top bloke

AXA via Fresh Insurance

Pedal Cover. Darren was great, knew exactly what was needed and as a broker pulled some nice tricks with excess insurance to squash the overall cost.

I’m with AMEX (don’t have a card btw).
After ringing around loads they were the cheapest and best for me.
(about 60% what I was paying with M&S).
You have to name everything over £1000 and also phones/laptops/etc which is a pain, but worth it.

When I added a new 3.5k bike earlier this year, they only charged me another £15.

Aviva
Pedalcover

I use LV.

Pedalcover.

Another vote for Pedal cover here. Not had to claim but the AXA backed policy seems to cover most eventualities without onerous loopholes.

Why is it that a couple of years ago when I tried to insure bikes of a similar value to the OP’s that no insurance company could help, apart from paying £1K per year just for the bikes ?

Confused here!

Just insured house and home, including specified bikes totalling 4k, with Esure for just under £200, which looked a bargain compared to previous attempts. Found with the meerkats.

Amex here as well. Haven’t had to claim so don’t know how good they are, but call centre staff are up to the usual high standards of Amex.

Do these policies include like-for-like replacement? Or a figure for depreciation?

15k of bikes and contents for £250 at pedal cover, M&S wanted £650, i guess having individual bikes at over £4.5k didn’t help.
covered away form home and abroad. also you get to pick your dealer for replacement so not going to be fobbed off with a plastic giant/trek/specialised etc from a big dealer but get a custom hand made frame from the original builder.

Anyone using a comparison site do a double check. I happily plugged all my stuff into the Meercat one, got a cheap quote that looked brilliant. Checked the small print on the insurance and I would have been covered for standard bike cover upto £1000 in value only, the additional bike information hadn’t been passed through.

AXA’s wording was tricksy as they quoted a total value that could be claimed but limited the individual value of each bike within that total.

Cycle specific seemed a better option just for not having to dick around in the event of a claim.

Exactly allan23, they need to double check. Everything changed when M & S needed each bike over either £1K or £2K in value to be specified and premiums were going through the roof.

AXA used to underwrite M & S policies.

M&S made the classic mistake – offering cheap cycle cover (intentionally or by accident), we all heard about it and insured with M&S, M&S then saw a big spike in cycle claims (genuine and otherwise), their claims team and accountants then screamed at the underwriters who changed the terms and increased the premiums and we all moved on to the next “great deal”….

Should note that one of the reasons I went with AMEX was because I got in writing that all bikes are covered when locked in shed/outbuilding and that they are insured when locked to a cycle rack.

Strangely, they aren’t covered when inside the vehicle and ‘on view’ (they get grouped with phones/laptops.etc), but they are if I lock them to a a tie-down point in the car.

In the same boat here, after new contents insurance that will cover bikes. have just emailed pedalcover. Thanks

Royal Sun Alliance. Just paid out for my £4K race bike. They have also paid out on seven bikes stolen from my house in 2011. Can’t recommend them enough. Not cheap. But insurance is only as good as when you need it.

The AA (over the phone) were good for us as Pedalcover couldn’t offer a policy.

Pedalcover sorted me out even though my house has too many rooms for most insurance companies!

Yup Pedal Cover gets my vote too! Very good and clever policy!

Well in the interests of helping you lot with this perennial problem, I’ll drag this up from the mists of time….

Just renewed with Pedalcover underwritten by AXA. I was with M&S but fell foul of their business ‘realignment’ which increased my premium to £1250 p/a!

I’m now paying a similar amount prior to M&S dicking about. All boiks covered up to £10k per and standard fancy STW items (watches, coffee machines etc 🙂 ) also suitably covered all risks and new for old.

Ace.

I use Your Cover from Allianz – Pedalcover have a great policy but were way more expensive for me, sadly.

We are using John Lewis

Aviva here. Had a chat with them about the bikes and they’re insured as named items. no problems great service

Have made a few claims and they’ve been most excellent. Premium has stayed pretty much the same for some time

Used AA for contents cover, was £151 with a £4k’s worth of bikes as listed items

Sadly pedalcover couldn’t quote for me as we have a claim for >£10k from a burst pipe in MrsMomos old house so I’ve renewed my AXA underwritten policy which our mortgage broker sorted out last year.

Have to say Darren was a top bloke though, sent through a nice letter apologising for being unable to quote!

AA here too – named bikes so all covered for their actual cost along with contents, etc for roughly £25k. £160!

How about Wiggle?
I just got an email that they have started doing Bike insurance.
I’ve not got a clue how much it is or if the Ts&Cs are reasonable though.

I can highly recommend using a price comparison type site. I use the one with the robot gimmick thingy.
It gave me Hastings Direct who insure the bikes as specified items.

I really don’t understand this! I spent ages on the phone trying to get cover that would include new for old. Most companies wouldn’t insure or if they did it was over £1K. Bikes kept in a locked garage, not living in a high crime area but needed cover for two £4K bikes plus others.

Wasn’t Direct Line Select the standard answer last year – but nothing on this thread?

I use Pedalcover for bikes plus contents / buildings. Wiggle have just launched bike specific insurance too.

I tried pedalcover just over a month ago. Filled in the online stuff, and had an email back saying that they were at a cycle event and would get back next week. Gave them a week, sent them a couple of reminders, no response at all.

Did the comparison sites, ended up with Hastings direct, 8 bikes covered as specified items, new for old, home and away, various values upto £2.5k, house and contents (fairly high value/size) for £300ish. Seems OK.

Disappointed with lack of response from pedalcover after all the hype here. Has anyone tried to claim through them? Was it a straightforward and successful process? I was a bit wary of using a smaller outfit which seemed to be very popular and somewhat ‘too good to be true’.

I really don’t understand this! I spent ages on the phone trying to get cover that would include new for old. Most companies wouldn’t insure or if they did it was over £1K. Bikes kept in a locked garage, not living in a high crime area but needed cover for two £4K bikes plus others.

Have you tried PedalCover, as suggested by many on here…? You’re obviously trying the wrong companies!

I’m still with M&S, but may move this year as they’re not the cheapest. Still only £300 including the bikes fully covered though. New for old, no stipulations on locks or anything.