Maizie
Guru
- Location
- NE Hertfordshire
I am looking at insurance at the moment. I’ve had the following thoughts/considerations with regard to using my home contents insurance:
1) Excess
2) Accidental cover
3) Cover away from home
4) New for old
In my case:
1) We have a £150 excess on our home contents insurance. A number of the bike-specific policies I’ve seen have no excess.
2) We have accidental cover for our home contents, but this was an extra. By default both our buildings and contents insurances did not include accidental damage. So I would have been insured for theft but not accident by default. Though even with this, it seems that pedal cycles are excluded from accidental damage in the home (only away from home).
3) We have a vast amount of cover for away from home that we added as an extra – mainly to cover photographic equipment when we go on hols (in the UK). Much cheaper to do that stuff the home contents than with a photo-specialised insurer (who wanted pretty much the same price over again). If I’m out on the bike, my camera gear will be at home. Therefore, I won’t lose all of that stuff away from home at once. So that’s OK, the bike comes under the value of away from home stuff.
4) New for Old – my home contents policy specifically excludes pedal cycles (among other things) from the new for old. I would get back the value of my bike reduce for wear and tear based on its age.
An additional point is accessories. My home contents insurance is very specific that it will cover the bicycle outside of the home, but not accessories. This is fair enough in the case of, say, having your bike lights nicked. But for even for fixed accessories, I’d be quite annoyed that I’d get the value of my bike back, but nothing for my rack, my pedals, my bottle cage
etc. Bike policies seem to include fixed accessories by default – and a lot of their websites seem to remind you to include the value of the lock in the insurance as well! So in the event of theft, you get back the value of the bike, the fixed accessories, and the lock that the thieving bar-steward must have got past (because no insurer is ever going to pay if you haven’t securely attached the bike to an appropriate fixed point. Most seem to say a gold-standard lock is needed for bikes over £1000, with silver needed for bikes up to that).
Just some things that might be useful for other people to consider.
1) Excess
2) Accidental cover
3) Cover away from home
4) New for old
In my case:
1) We have a £150 excess on our home contents insurance. A number of the bike-specific policies I’ve seen have no excess.
2) We have accidental cover for our home contents, but this was an extra. By default both our buildings and contents insurances did not include accidental damage. So I would have been insured for theft but not accident by default. Though even with this, it seems that pedal cycles are excluded from accidental damage in the home (only away from home).
3) We have a vast amount of cover for away from home that we added as an extra – mainly to cover photographic equipment when we go on hols (in the UK). Much cheaper to do that stuff the home contents than with a photo-specialised insurer (who wanted pretty much the same price over again). If I’m out on the bike, my camera gear will be at home. Therefore, I won’t lose all of that stuff away from home at once. So that’s OK, the bike comes under the value of away from home stuff.
4) New for Old – my home contents policy specifically excludes pedal cycles (among other things) from the new for old. I would get back the value of my bike reduce for wear and tear based on its age.
An additional point is accessories. My home contents insurance is very specific that it will cover the bicycle outside of the home, but not accessories. This is fair enough in the case of, say, having your bike lights nicked. But for even for fixed accessories, I’d be quite annoyed that I’d get the value of my bike back, but nothing for my rack, my pedals, my bottle cage

Just some things that might be useful for other people to consider.