Trackers and Insurance

[TracyD2016]

Hi
Could anyone advise if bike tracking devices are of good use? If so which ones are good to buy

Also, does anyone know of a insurance i could buy to insure my sons bike

Just had a £500 bike stolen, devastated

Dont want to buy another until i feel i have it covered this time

Thnx in advance

 

[Cubist]

Hi
Could anyone advise if bike tracking devices are of good use? If so which ones are good to buy

Also, does anyone know of a insurance i could buy to insure my sons bike

Just had a £500 bike stolen, devastated

Dont want to buy another until i feel i have it covered this time

Thnx in advance

Hi and

Just sorry it's under these circumstances.

Unfortunately I don't have much faith in trackers. Apart from anything else police stores don't have access to the correct scanning equipment, so tagged bikes don't get checked. Add to that the places to hide things like chips and tags are limited. Better to invest in a good quality D lock in the bike is to be left for any time.

 

[Mile195]

I have a tracker on a motorbike. It doesn't make a penny of difference to insurance - not one penny. This is because they're immediately useless if the thief has a gps jammer, which are apparently very easy and cheap to get hold of.

Buy a good D-Lock, yes - that's good advice. But your best method of preventing theft is keeping it out of sight. When it's at home, don't lock it out the front of the house - take it round to a garden if you have one for example.

Specific cycle theft insurance is in my opinion a complete waste of money... The couple of policies I looked at some years ago had exceptions for absolutely everything that might possibly happen, and some things that wouldn't either (it wasn't covered if it was stolen during a war - would you believe it). You'd be better off putting the £15 a month in a jar, and if it gets nicked again use the money to buy another one.

I just put mine on my house insurance. They also probably won't pay out unless it's stolen by fairies, dinosaurs or alien lizards either (and of course only then if I have photos to prove it) but at least it only costs me another £30 a year.

 

[Drago]

Trackers do nothing to prevent your bike being half inched.

 

[TracyD2016]

Thanks evry1

Ye 14 year olds dont ride round with d-locks when they out n about. But next time he will for sure!!!!

Gutted those trackers dont sound anygood, i would of loved to of tracked him last night when driving round like a loon searching !

Insurance, i guess no good when he, for split seconds turned around n had to chase them for his bike n sadly here is getting worse for bike thefts. What makes it harder is my lad is only 14 but 6ft odd tall so crappy second hand bikes i would be buying every two weeks so i went for XL good bike.

 

[the snail]

Bike insurance is a waste of time, when I looked into it it cost nearly as much to insure a £800 bike as I pay for my home insurance, which I shopped around for and get bikes up to £1500 cover included as standard. Also the home insurance doesn't require particular locks to be used, just that it's locked to something immovable when outside the house.If it were my lad, I'd buy him two decent locks, tell him to put one through front wheel/frame/immovable object, the other through rear wheel/frame/immovable object. If he didn't do that and his bike got nicked, I wouldn't be buying him another one.

 

[mjr]

When it's at home, don't lock it out the front of the house - take it round to a garden if you have one for example.

Lock it, even at home, preferably to a ground or wall anchor (or at least a hoop stuck in a bucket of cement) with an alarmed lock that you can hear from indoors. Theft of unsecured bicycles from back gardens is pretty common because it's a better reward-risk balance than attacking most cycle parks: would anyone challenge people walking along behind back garden fences in your area? Reportedly, they peer into sheds around here and bust them open to take bikes if it looks worth it.

I don't have much faith in onboard trackers - if they work (big IF) then I suspect nicked likely-tracked bikes get stashed somewhere without GPS and mobile signal (we've plenty of notspots) until they can search the bike (I've only seen trackers for stem, pedal and seat/seatpost areas so far) or the battery runs out.

When out, I use two locks of different types - currently one hefty D lock and one alarmed braid-of-braids cable - and each of my bikes is worth less than £200... but it's usually a long walk home and it'd annoy me to lose something I've worked on so much. I don't expect the alarm to be anything more than an annoyance unless I'm in earshot, but it might make a passer-by look and remember the thief's description - they certainly look when it makes its arming beep.

See http://www.lfgss.com/conversations/144109/ for the current state of the art of locks.

 

[TracyD2016]

Thankyou for all advice everyone

 

[Spinney]

Thanks evry1

Ye 14 year olds dont ride round with d-locks when they out n about. But next time he will for sure!!!!

Gutted those trackers dont sound anygood, i would of loved to of tracked him last night when driving round like a loon searching !

Insurance, i guess no good when he, for split seconds turned around n had to chase them for his bike n sadly here is getting worse for bike thefts. What makes it harder is my lad is only 14 but 6ft odd tall so crappy second hand bikes i would be buying every two weeks so i went for XL good bike.

I think the conclusion was that the trackers weren't any good for preventing a bike being stolen or getting it back afterwards. If, however, you want to keep a track of where your son's bike is, they will work.

 

[lpretro1]

For insurance I can recommend BikMo+

 

[mjr]

For insurance I can recommend BikMo+

Why? https://bikmoplus.com/ seems limited to "Sold Secure" locks and 24hrs max parking away from home (hotels covered but no staying with friends, OK?), home thefts by "violent and forcible entry" (so poor you if you have thieves who pick locks or unscrew shed hinges) and ground anchors only if in shed or garden (no concrete buckets as I described earlier).

Actually, it looks like BikMo+ doesn't consider council cycle parks immovable objects unless the bottoms are built into the ground (a rare thing these days - security bolts are often used because then squares can be cleared for events without digging) but does cover all railway ones, which seems just crazy. Aren't railway stations (low numbers passing, owner not likely to return unless a train's arriving) much higher-risk cycle parks than town centre ones (lots of passing people, owner may return any second)?

 

[Mile195]

Why? https://bikmoplus.com/ seems limited to "Sold Secure" locks and 24hrs max parking away from home (hotels covered but no staying with friends, OK?), home thefts by "violent and forcible entry" (so poor you if you have thieves who pick locks or unscrew shed hinges) and ground anchors only if in shed or garden (no concrete buckets as I described earlier).

Actually, it looks like BikMo+ doesn't consider council cycle parks immovable objects unless the bottoms are built into the ground (a rare thing these days - security bolts are often used because then squares can be cleared for events without digging) but does cover all railway ones, which seems just crazy. Aren't railway stations (low numbers passing, owner not likely to return unless a train's arriving) much higher-risk cycle parks than town centre ones (lots of passing people, owner may return any second)?

I see the t's and c's haven't changed much since I looked. I hate insurance companies. Most policies covering specific items aren't fit for purpose and it's a giant con the fact that they're still allowed to sell them to people. What irritates me more is that well known cycling organisations supposedly acting in the cyclists interests pedal these crap policies too. The commission is massive though and that's why they do it. I once used to work for a mobile phone chain (before anyone really had mobiles!). I used to get more commission on the insurance than the phone. But then the insurance only covered things that definitely wouldn't happen so the premium was ultimately money-for-nothing. Example - if your phone got stolen out of the car, it had to be under the spare wheel in the boot. Seriously - the policy actually said that.
I now only buy insurance for things that I have to - ie car and home. Pet insurance, phone insurance, bike insurance... save what you would have spent each month in a seperate bank account, and there's your policy. It always pays out and there's no forms to fill in. And if nothing happens then you can go on holiday.

 

[mjr]

I now only buy insurance for things that I have to - ie car and home. Pet insurance, phone insurance, bike insurance... save what you would have spent each month in a seperate bank account, and there's your policy. It always pays out and there's no forms to fill in. And if nothing happens then you can go on holiday.

Yes, £9.36/month in a savings account instead of Bikmo+ looks probably a much better approach, especially if you have many bikes. After all, the ones at home are usually cheaper on your home insurance (except for a few bad insurers with low maximum bike cover) and although cover while out is probably complete-theft-only, it's often less obnoxiously restricted and component-strippers aren't likely to steal more than the savings account has in it after a few months.

I just noticed that Bikmo+'s Key Facts document is titled "Text to begin here". You have to love that attention to detail from an insurer, eh?

 

[Milkfloat]

My bikes are covered for a grand total of £8 extra on my home insurance policy. As long as they are inside something locked or are locked themselves then I am covered. There is no minimum lock standard required either.

 

[Mile195]

My bikes are covered for a grand total of £8 extra on my home insurance policy. As long as they are inside something locked or are locked themselves then I am covered. There is no minimum lock standard required either.

£8 a month. Until you try to claim. Then you find your premium next year is double the price whether or not your claim was successful. Although I, like you DO have it added to my house insurance simply because the option was very cheap, although I won't be holding my breath about getting any payout if it gets stolen from anywhere else except my house which is the only reason I took the option. When I originally enquired about specific cycle-theft insurance they wanted £15 a month. So far I've saved £1080 on not buying it.