Bike Insurance

mloc123

http://www.irishtriathlon.com/index.php/2010/10/cycle-insurance-for-triathletes/

Might be of some interest, seems to cover bikes used for racing.

spyderski

Absolutely, ridiculously expensive. I can predict with some certainty that the will get f**k all business at these prices.
I can insure my 3 litre BMW for less than half of what they want to insure my 6k Bike. The BMW can do 150MPH, would cost 40k to replace, and could kill a fair number of people in the worst case. Where is the sense in that?
If this lot feel that bike insurance needs to be that expensive, due to actuarial risk, then they should find something else nice and safe to insure.

StudentC

http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/surviving-the-recession/two-firms-now-provide-dedicated-cover-for-bikes-2388902.html

Piece in today's Indo mentioning two companies doing bike insurance

mickmcl09

@8% to, what, 11% of the value of your bike.
new for old.
cover for racing.
Good value IMO.
Ok your not going to have the same bike for 10 odd years, but the chance of you writing off a frame, especially if you're racing is fairly high over the course of even a season or two never mind what the odds would be for 10 years of cycling. Actually you'd probably have a higher chance of coming a cropper at a leisure or sportif event than you would racing.
Look at it as investing in your replacement bike...sorry, that's a bit smart.....but it happens to be true if you think about it.

Bike insurance was available from another organisation in Ireland 2 years ago.
They brought in approx. just under 20k in premiums for the year, but they paid out astronomical money (somebody might have the exact figures) in claims. By astronomical I think it was at least in excess of 100k paid out in claims. The process wasn't controlled properly by all accounts and it became almost like a free for all in terms of making claims.

From the actuaries point of view, push bikes would be calculated under completely different factors to cars.
Insurance is a numbers game, one could liken it to a regulated format of gambling, yes the very same as going into the bookies to bet on a horse, it's the value you put on the risk you are willing to take.

As it happens insurance companies make money from the car insurance policies that they provide and sell (and every car vehicle in Ireland has to be insured by law, unlike bicycles), there lies your answer why car insurance seems relatively cheaper than bike insurance.

By shopping around for your wheel upgrades, replacement groupsets etc. What you would save would go more than half ways to paying the insurance, money well spent IMO.

spyderski

Spoken like someone who has "experience" of the insurance industry! I fork out around 10K a year in insurance premiums, so have a bit of experience with it myself. Got an online quote 2 days ago for 15% of the new value of my bike. This is a high percentage to begin with. Where does it say this is a new for old scheme? If so I can insure my 1993 Cannondale with Ultegra & if it gets stolen Ill have a shiny new Super Six in its place? I think not!!

From an actuaries point of view, i wouldn't cover a €300 commuter bike for a 100% premium (ie €300 p.a) 'cos it will more than likely get robbed, however, serious cyclists who have invested proper money in their bikes, tend not to commute on them, and look after them better than the average commuter. Racing bikes also tend to do less miles.

spyderski

"South Kilkenny" is very near one of the insurers bases in Waterford City?

mickmcl09

spyderski wrote: »

"South Kilkenny" is very near one of the insurers bases in Waterford City?

And? So what? What's your point?
I suspect your insinuation is, that I Know the insurer, hence my comments....so? Is that a problem?

Yes I do know the guy who is affiliated with cyclesure. I know him in a social capacity and have been on many spins with the guy. Maybe if you spoke to him about bike insurance you'd feel fully informed as to what cyclesure offers and then you could make your own informed decision.
I found talking to him very informative in that it filled in the blanks for me having looked at the site first.

I don't think you'd hand out 10k in insurance without speaking to a branch manager or sales manager about the detail. €10k for business, €120/€300 for bike insurance, it's all relative. If you see bike insurance as a necessity bad enough then you'd contact them to see exactly what's covered and what's not instead of berating it on a public forum.

Did you look at the excesses on your insurance premiums this year? Ask Eddie Hobbs. Have you compared last years excesses to this years on your policy? If you haven't your in for a surprise and you'll find that in alot of cases where the excess might have been a bearable €200/€250 it now €1k/2k and in some cases €500 excesses have been slyly increased to amounts exceeding €10k. Then you'll have something to give out about on another forum, and rightly so because you'll be fully informed.

Don't blast something unless you're fully informed.

My comments have nothing to do with my interests or the interests of the insurer.

Also as it happens I worked in the insurance industry for a number of years in the late 90's and the start of the 00's in commercial, domestic and car insurance so I have a bit of knowledge of the industry.

In nearly 100% of cases where you have a representative out to your business to give you a quote for your business, he's not going to be an actuary, an underwriter but probably a sales manager or branch manager at most. He has all the guidelines for calculating your premium already sitting in front of him. He's just looking at a spreadsheet. An experienced insurance rep. will know immediately if he can cut a bit off the premium otherwise he'll refer back to the underwriter.

Cost of insurance is made up of actuarial risk calculation plus what the insurance company perceives as an amount that will maximise market share and exceed the cost of overheads by as much as possible. That's the simplest way of putting it to you.

Pm me if you like and I can pass your details on to the guy and he'll have the full and correct detail for you.

spyderski

mickmcl09 wrote: »

A€10k for business, €120/€300 for bike insurance, it's all relative. If you see bike insurance as a necessity bad enough then you'd contact them to see exactly what's covered and what's not instead of berating it on a public forum.D

I completely agree, €120/300 would be perfectly reasonable - my quote, however, was €940-odd. The minutiae of what is covered is irrelevant, I wanted and got a quote for racing/accidental damage and theft cover. After that I don't care if Thor Hushovd personally delivers my replacement Cervelo.

I don't wish to get involved in a slagging match over this, suffice it to say I have enough knowledge of the insurance industry to realise this is an overpriced product. Try getting a quote from a UK bike insurer & you might see exactly how overpriced. (and yes I understand all about population differences/premium income etc., but is the RISK less in the UK?).

Anyway, how about a straw poll to see how many Boardises have insured their bikes under these schemes? Not all at once now!

mickmcl09

spyderski wrote: »

I completely agree, €120/300 would be perfectly reasonable - my quote, however, was €940-odd. The minutiae of what is covered is irrelevant, I wanted and got a quote for racing/accidental damage and theft cover. After that I don't care if Thor Hushovd personally delivers my replacement Cervelo.

I don't wish to get involved in a slagging match over this, suffice it to say I have enough knowledge of the insurance industry to realise this is an overpriced product. Try getting a quote from a UK bike insurer & you might see exactly how overpriced. (and yes I understand all about population differences/premium income etc., but is the RISK less in the UK?).

Will a UK bike insurer insure a bike based in ROI and owned by a resident of the ROI? The UK quotes not only vary by the value of the bike, but by the post code.

At the end of the day insurance prices only come down to a level by competition, the volume of business available, the relative risk and once it gets to a certain low level, insurers either discontinue the insurance product or move the goal posts in terms of excesses etc. N.B. compare the excesses on your home and business insurance this year comparing to last year - if you haven't you're in for a nasty surprise - most of the insurance companies have dramatically increased the excesses with only a very small minority making it crystal clear by how much they have increased them.

Insurance companies have had their fingers burnt with bike insurance before and they're not going to let it happen again. This is not because of you or I, it's because of all those guys 2 years ago that took the piss out of an insurance policy for bike insurance here in Ireland.