House insurance vs Cycle insurance

One of the biggest questions when insuring your bike is whether or not your house insurance can cover you instead of taking out a cycle-specific policy.

Many cyclists assume that their bikes are adequately covered by their home contents insurance, and in some circumstances, this may be true, but it is essential that you read the policy wording to check the coverage it provides. You might find that you need more cover!

A few checks you may want to undertake on your home contents insurance are:

Maximum cycle value

If you’re reading this, you’ll likely have a minimum of one bike worth at least €1,000. Many of our customers own three bikes with values up to €12,000.

With your home contents insurance, there will almost certainly be a limit on the value of cycles, which could be as low as €500.

If your bikes are worth more than this limit, they may need to be declared explicitly on a home insurance policy, and they’ll want an additional premium. In many cases, home insurers will decline to provide cover for high-value bikes.

Cover away from the home?

If you ride your bike, you’ll spend much of your time out on the road or travelling with your bike in the UK and overseas.

Some household policies will not cover accidental damage or theft while the bike is away from the home, which is probably when you need it most.

Few also cover your bike when it’s outside of the UK – does yours?

Competition cover

Whether you ride sportives or race DH, many of us like to race against the clock or competitors.

Your home contents policy may also exclude damage caused when participating in competitive or mass participation events. They’ll almost certainly turn down a claim if your bike is stolen from a race transition area.

Bikmo is tailored for cyclists to choose their level of cover for the type of events they ride, whether an enduro, triathlon, CX, road race or sportive.

What is your excess?

If you claim, it’s good to know that you won’t have a sting in the tail concerning your claim’s excess.

With Bikmo, where available, you can opt to have €0 excess on bicycle claims when you replace through our retail partners.

Is your bike covered when you lend it to a friend or family member?

We often lend our bikes to friends when they’re visiting, new to cycling or if a mate is in a fix before a race and needs a bicycle.

A home insurance policy will be in your name, so if you claim damage or theft when you have lent the bike to a friend, the insurers may not pay out.

Bikmo covers your bikes if you’ve permitted a friend or family member to use them.

Will you be charged more next year if you claim?

So your bike gets stolen from your house, and your insurance is up for renewal in a few weeks. Does that mean you’ll pay extra on the bike part of your premium or the whole policy?

Making a claim on your household policy will likely result in higher premiums.

Making a claim with Bikmo won’t affect your house insurance policy.

Summary

Although home contents insurance may be sufficient cover for your family bikes when cycling close to home, if you own bikes above €400, compete, travel or ride a lot, you may want to consider cycle-specific insurance.

At Bikmo, we ride bikes every day and shaped our policy around people like us who ride bikes a lot, whether on roads, mountains or parks, in the UK or overseas.

It costs nothing to get a quote, and you may just be surprised at its affordability.