Had another call with Halifax this time. Specified bikes and wanted to check they are covered away from home unattended in a van.

Person on the phone says they are covered, but can’t provide an email or letter confirming until I’ve bought the policy…
Also said I don’t need to worry though as the full call is recorded and will be used if I ever claimed (they wouldn’t give me a copy of the recording).

So hang on a sec, were you talking about bikes as specified valuable items on the policy?

Personally, yes. But to reiterate, it was about 12 months ago and what may (or may not) have been correct last week, let alone back then, is no indication of what’s correct today.

Edit : had a dig back in my old downloads, this is from the significant exclusions section on my policy booklet.

• theft or attempted theft from a road vehicle, unless the item(s) was contained in a locked boot, concealed
luggage compartment or glove compartment of a locked vehicle, which was broken into by using force
and violence – the maximum amount we will pay is £750

Re Barclays (just spoken with them)

No cover if bike is inside a vehicle as you would need to add their “Personal items cover” BUT then this will only pay a max of £1500 for theft from an unattended vehicle.

However if stolen when locked to a bicycle specific carrier which is also locked to the vehicle would need be referred to the underwriter for a ruling.

FYI, Sussex address, £50 excess & £3500 cover is £94 for the year. Adding £1.5k of Personal items cover bumps it up to £138

For a bike specific insurance I got my best quote from Eversure. Very comprehensive cover that seemed to tick every box including accidental damage and racing.

Bump, anyone got anything tha isn’t voided if you work from home and do anyting more than computers and paperwork? Mrs NBT makes curtains, we’;re not looking for business cover but lots of insurers just say “oh no we don’t cover that”

I have just had an interesting experience with M+S, Phoned on weekend to ask about Bikes in Vehicle. Told they were not covered, I questioned this because I knew they were covered last year I phoned up. I rang during week to two separate handlers to be told they are covered in Van, if van is locked and bikes are locked in the van. Also insured if locked to a locked on cycle rack. Well done M+S.

Bumpity bump (queue a load of responses to post 1, page 1 😛 )

Just changed mine (using a price comparison site) to Quote Me Happy, when my previous put the renewal price way too high (why do they do that!?)
Thought it was interesting, because Quote Me Happy do bikes a different way to all the others I’ve used in the past 10-15 years. Bikes are not ‘specified items’, they cover them as “Personal Belongings – Pedal Cycles” up to a given limit. So if your most expensive bike is £10grand, all bikes are covered up to that £10K limit at home and away.
Mine’s £4K, cos bikes are all old, and its £29 a year for the bikes.
They are only insured for £1.5K if they’re stolen from an unattended car, which may put some off.

Just noticed they only insure up to 5 bedroom houses, so unfortunately that’s most STWers out 😉

Anyway, thought it was worth adding on here.

Just noticed they only insure up to 5 bedroom houses, so unfortunately that’s most STWers out

Good info. Did they say anything about if you’ve got an orangery?

Yep, says put Sudocrem on it

QMH have a 5k limit for pedal cycles, which mirrors the Aviva cover its based on.

Oh, didn’t notice that, I take back the £10k example! (Hmm, wonders what would happen if I bought a £6k bike in the next year….)
They don’t do ebikes as standard either, but then, ebikes pfft.

Yes, just checked, the £5K limit for bikes is still the case (£30 a year, to insure all bikes up to £5K each, btw)
Another advantage of QMH is you can make all changes AND cancel policy online and not have to wait on an irritating phone line like all the others I’ve dealt with.

So which othe insurer covers all this and bikes on holiday etc? Bikes in cars…

In other words the exact policy that pedalcover effectively offers.

Because I can’t see the point in saying something is cheaper if it comes with differences and or limitations.

With pedal cover i think there was a max claim of 70,000 and max individual item of 10,000.

A bump from me, I know insurance is an ongoing question on here as cover slowly gets worse.

I just had my renewal through with Aviva – they had been covering son at uni and his £3k bike. They would not cover £3k bike next year with him at uni, and not matching items cover (hence why we have mis-matched kitchen cupboards now)…

I have moved to Nationwide (see OP…!) who offered new for old cover on bikes, matching items cover, more cover away from home, student cover and bike covered in student digs as long as his main residence is still here etc and came in £50 less than Aviva, with a £220/25% discount as we have a Nationwide account.

You can have *any* Nationwide bank account to access the 25% discount.

£220 discount

So they paid you to take the policy out?! 😀

In other words the exact policy that pedalcover effectively offers

I ended up with Halifax this year as there was a line in the pedal cover policy booklet to the effect of no receipts no payout.

Fine on a 6 week old bike, maybe 6 months but not a few years.

So they paid you to take the policy out?!

I wish…

Sadly still £600 for the year…

I’m going through a claim with Halifax Home Insurance currently, having been drawn to them for the reasonable bike insurance.

The claim was for jewellery, purse / wallet and bags taken whilst someone searched the house for car keys (which they unfortunately found).

Initially Halifax were brilliant – new locks that day, very fast payout on bags/wallet/purse, but they have been appalling on the jewellery replacement – they had the items valued using a company they appointed (using a detailed valuation from 2010 and a recent photo showing item was still owned) and the assessor stated one item was irreplaceable.
Since then they have tried to settle with our choice of an incomparable alternative item or a significantly reduced cash payout (started at 50%, currently up to 68% of their valuation).

They have made various bungles over the past 6 weeks such as offering us an amount for cash settlement then withdrawing it claiming someone made an error on their side, then later offering that higher amount again.

All of this is in contradiction with their own T&Cs which simply state for irreplaceable items ‘we will base out payment on expert opinion of its value immediately prior to its loss…’.

It’s currently with them as a complaint to deal with (payout not matching valuation or their T&Cs, their poor process in making settlements, and their ethics in trying to under-settle with us). I just hope they are reasonable, accept it’s irreplaceable and pay out in line with their valuation.

Somewhat ironically if they had offered the current settlement immediately we might well have accepted, it was only due to them being difficult with the claim that I re-read the T&Cs and realised what we were entitled to as settlement.

I’ve learnt 3 lessons:
1. Read the T&Cs
2. Ethics go out the window when it comes to insurers paying out
3. Read the T&Cs again

‘we will base out payment on expert opinion of its value immediately prior to its loss…’.

Playing Devil’s advocate but “basing it on the estimated value” is not the same as simply paying the estimated value. Offering a fixed 1% of the estimate would absolutely meet the Ts and Cs you’ve written above.

OTOH did you not need to get it valued every 12 months anyhow if it was of significant value so you could declare it accurately and they could judge the associated risk correctly?

I get that however with an onus to put the insured back to the position prior to loss a company would be very hard pushed to justify paying less and FOS would take a dim view on that (TCF), plus it is clearly out of line with regulator conduct rules for any individual at the firm to make such a decision (acting with integrity).

There is no requirement to revalue under the policy requirements. We had it done back in 2010 with documentation and photos, easy enough to take that to an expert and get an up to date valuation when needed and I’d be buggered to pay out every year to refresh a valuation. The policy we has a very high unspecified limit for high-risk items which this falls within even at their valuation. We did in fact insure this at an agreed value, one which their appointed appraiser decided was too low hence and offered a larger payout than – their choice, nothing to do with us. They just haven’t offered a settlement at their value.

Either way they have been incompetent, contradicted themselves (bungles mentioned above) and basically gone from heroes on day 1 post theft to showering themselves in shit.

Further to above Halifax Home Insurance investigated my concerns and upheld the complaint – been offered an appropriate settlement amount in line with the policy now. It feels like I got unlucky speaking to one member of staff on the way through which led to a merry dance.

Not put off using them again now have the right outcome, as said for everything other than the jewellery they were great.