Worth a word with Pedalcover they will cover premises, contents ,legal expeses with an excess protection which can be used to protect an excess on a motor policy .

The home part of the insurance will cover Tandems , solo's , any number. . I hasten to say I have no conection with them except by being a policy holder

Phone 01656 652977

I added ours to our home insurance with Co-op. It cost £7.50 . The policy could insure any bikes up to £2500 value.

Ian Aldred

We have just renewed our house insurance last week so while it is fresh in my mind I will comment on this frequently asked question.  We were with M&S house insurance, who included bikes to a reasonable value (for tandems), until about 5 years ago when they reduced the value they would consider at about the same time we bought a new more expensive tandem.  We transferred to another company who would include the value of the bikes but we considered this was getting very expensive to the extent we had decided to self insure when this years policy ended.  However when we went back to M&S Home Insurance for a quote it appears they have come back into the market for relatively high value bikes.  They have Standard and Premier policies which effectively reflects the level of cover, with further add on options including bikes.  For the bike add on the Standard policy will cover all bikes up to a total value of £10,000 and the Premier £15,000.  They ask for the value of your most expensive bike you want covered and all other bikes are covered up to the policy maximum value.  I was charged an additional £40 on the Premier policy which will include 3 tandems, 2 solos and a unicycle, although I assume this could be cheaper if the value of our most expensive bike was less.  One additional clincher for us is that M&S also allow the house to be left un-occupied for up to 90 days at any one time while almost all others are for up to 60 days.  We looked at Pedalcover but didn't get a quote as the indicated maximum time the house can be left un-occupied is only 30 days, although if this is enough I am aware many members of the club speak highly of them.  I can't imagine there is one policy that will suite everybody but I am quite happy with our new poicy at the moment, although the real test for any policy is how they handle claims!

Insurance  it is important to be clear about what is insured. When the policy is linked with home insurance is the cover limited to theft or damage while at home or does the cover extend to road use and any resultant theft or accidental damage.

Yes, ours is for out and about as well as at home. For theft, has to have been locked up to something else (fixed not just another bike etc)

You do get what you pay for, to a great extent.  Do check the small print of the terms very carefully - one provider I looked at (one of the lager ones) had terms that had a condition that when stored in a garage, the door had to be secured by a five-point lock, which doesn't make a lot of sense for most garage doors (or any ones I have seen, anyway).  I asked them about this, and they told me it didn't mean the main door, but I was wary about taking cover where the written terms were that ambiguous.  I think it also required, for theft from a garage, evidence of "forced and violent entry", which strikes me as quite a hard thing to prove. Given the real possibility of cover being denied where conditions are not met (also see using a properly-rated lock) it is worth being very careful about the details.

After being quoted £200 for cover by a specialist provider I contacted my home insurer, Halifax, who added my new tandem as a specified item (up to £10,000 for any bike I think) for under £20 for the year.

Insurance is a very dodgy subject. As i found out the hard way. With a bicycle worth £700 locked with a D shackle lock to my wooden  porch stansion. Being wood it was not a secure object. So read the small print carefully.

If you have a bike insured on your home insurance, then the insurer will only pay out the full price if the bike is taken from the house.  Providing it is locked with a gold standard or grade 10 plus security lock attached to the bike and in a locked shed secured with a gold star high security lock. If you are outside the house then you will only get 10 to 30% of the bikes value, depending on who your insurance is with. With specialist insurances, if you lock your bike to a lamp post this is not classed as a secure point. Likewise railings or gates. You also need a gold standard security lock. Or the insurance will not pay out.  When taking out insurance read the small print. They will all take your money, but will find any excuse not to pay out.

My new platinum security is in place.