CTC Insurance

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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pharker
Posts: 4
Joined: 31 Mar 2013, 11:29am
Location: Preston, Lancashire

CTC Insurance

Post by pharker »

Has anyone had experience of the CTC recommended cycle insurance. For the last 10 years I have taken my holidays on a bike, mainly in France and Belgium. I have never bothered about insuring my rather old unloved Dawes Galaxy, but I have just bought a brand new touring bike which was rather expensive. The CTC recommended insurance has so many exclusions and requirements that I cannot image they would ever pay-out if my bike was stolen. I would welcome and comments about locks and "electronic tags".
Phil
Phil H
whiskywheels
Posts: 88
Joined: 1 Aug 2008, 5:41pm

Re: CTC Insurance

Post by whiskywheels »

CTC insurance, along with other specialist insurance seems outrageously expensive to me. The last time I checked, it would cost more to insure my expensive, best bike, than it does to insure my car. If you have home insurance, you can usually add cycles to it, including cover whilst travelling abroad etc., and this will cost only a small (if any) supplement to your existing premium. All insurers will require the bike to be kept safely overnight however, usually in a locked building.

If this doesn't suit your requirements, hopefully you'll get some recommendations here about locks. Given that you've done these trips before on your old Dawes, I'm tempted to say that since you've not had any problems before, maybe you'd be OK again, despite the more expensive bike!
simonhill
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Location: Essex

Re: CTC Insurance

Post by simonhill »

Using your house insurance may be a cheaper option, but it is unlikely an expensive bike will be included for free.

The limit on my house insurance is for £250 per bike, which is useless for most. When I enquired about adding a more expensive bike the extra charge was around the pretty standard of about £100 per £1000 bike.
pal
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Joined: 22 Mar 2008, 11:49am

Re: CTC Insurance

Post by pal »

Co-op contents insurance (and I think some others -- perhaps M&S?) has a limit of up to £1000 per bike, and covers them for up to 60 days overseas. There are some restrictions on how long you can leave a bike locked up in a public place (from memory: 12 hours generally; 24 hours at train stations), but generally the rules are fairly reasonable. The downside is that the insurance itself isn't cheap (though cheaper than the specialist stand-alone bike insurance packages, in my experience).
simonhill
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Location: Essex

Re: CTC Insurance

Post by simonhill »

Be careful. If the policy limit is x and your bike is worth (or recently cost) x plus a bit they probably won't cover it.

I have an article valued at £1200, my limit is £1000. They said it needs to be listed and paid for as a separate item. I said I would be happy with £1000 if I lost it, they said no it wouldn't be covered.

I imagine it would be the same with a bike.
Seventeezlad2

Re: CTC Insurance

Post by Seventeezlad2 »

The following has been provided for your information by Citybond:

In essence the policy is designed to encourage members to take the best care of the bike possible to deter any possible theft. The level of cover is very high for the premium paid, so to make this work for all, the insurance company are trying to ensure that members take care of their bikes and don't simply rely on the insurers to pick up the tab.

A week in Europe for a 45 year old will cost approximately £35. This year, this includes cover for up to £3,000 for the bike alone. There is no additional charge for the bike, it is free this year on the Premier level of the policy (insurers charged additional premium last year). In addition to this the member will have their medical expenses paid in the event of an accident (etc) whilst they are away. The cost of breaking a collar bone in Spain can run into the region of £5,000 - £10,000. So, if you fall off your bike and break your collar bone and have your bike stolen insurers will pay the £13,000 costs. You only need to pay the £35 and the excess.

The electronic tab ruling is there to ensure that the policy can work for both the member and the insurance company. Theft needs to be deterred so that this can work.

Rebecca Finch-Parsons
Sales Manager
Tel: 0845 618 0333
Fax: 0845 618 0334
sales@citybond.co.uk
http://www.citybond.co.uk
pharker
Posts: 4
Joined: 31 Mar 2013, 11:29am
Location: Preston, Lancashire

Re: CTC Insurance

Post by pharker »

This is my response to Rebecca' s comments.
Thank you for your response regarding my comments about the CTC travel insurance policy. I started taking cycling holidays 10 years ago, after my children reached an age where they no longer wanted to come on holiday with their parents. I usually spend a week cycling with a friend or colleague and a week with my wife. I take my own bike if I go by ferry to northern Europe and I rent if I fly to somewhere further afield. We aim to cover about 50 miles or less a day and stay at B&B or hotels.
Many general travel insurance policies cover only casual cycling – not cycling every day for 5 hours or more, so the City Bond policy is very good from that point of view. I have probably stayed in between 60 and 80 hotels with a bike. If it is a rented bike I am paranoid as I have usually agreed to replace it if it is stolen. Each time I arrive at a hotel or B&B there is always a debate with the receptionist or owner as to where the bikes are to be stored. I have stored my bike in court yards, cellars, corridors, in the bushes outside my window, in the restaurant, in the owner’s garage and probably the strangest place was in a larder off a kitchen. I have never been offered a room to which I have sole access with a 5 lever lock. I am generally welcomed as a cyclist is France and only occasionally seen as a nuisance. It has not always been possible to put the bike somewhere I have felt entirely comfortable. The night our bikes were in the bushes outside my hotel room I did not sleep well as I was constantly checking that they were still there, even though they were chained up.
I am a cautious person – one needs to be to survive on a bike on the roads. My point is that it is not always possible to dictate to an hotelier or B&B owner that my bike needs to be stored in compliance with the wording of an insurance policy.
Could someone tell me how I go about getting my bike tagged and put on a police database?
Regards
Phil
Phil H
simonhill
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Re: CTC Insurance

Post by simonhill »

I had my last bike tagged. They (council and police) were doing a tagging session in the local park. I removed seatpot and they stuck it down the tube. I think it is like a dog tag, passive, but readable. You then give them your details and they record them and send you a registration letter.

What I would like to know is how many bikes have been recovered by this method? OK if the police bust a bike felon with a shed full of stolen bikes, but not much use if Mr robber, or someone he has sold the bike to is out pedalling the streets.
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mjr
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Re: CTC Insurance

Post by mjr »

pal wrote:Co-op contents insurance (and I think some others -- perhaps M&S?) has a limit of up to £1000 per bike, and covers them for up to 60 days overseas. There are some restrictions on how long you can leave a bike locked up in a public place (from memory: 12 hours generally; 24 hours at train stations), but generally the rules are fairly reasonable. The downside is that the insurance itself isn't cheap (though cheaper than the specialist stand-alone bike insurance packages, in my experience).

That's basically right, but to be clear because I've got it handy: it's part of the "Unspecified Personal Possessions" of the co-op home insurance, rather than the contents part. Depending on what other personal possessions you want to include on your policy (and most people have some I think), the co-op often isn't a bad price AFAICT and the marginal cost of also adding cycles is much smaller. I couldn't find anything about 12/24hour limits in the co-op one but I've heard that before and this is clearly a home policy, so if it the bike's arguably normally kept at a station or something like that (rather than parked there as part of a journey), I'd expect problems trying to claim.

I've been through my paper copy of the co-operative insurance current policy and the booklet of changes and as far as I can tell, this is the full wording as it applies to cycles:
  • What is insured ... We will not pay in respect of any one event more than the Total Sum Insured on Unspecified Personal Possessions shown in the Policy Details, less the Excess specified in the Claims Settlement Provisions of this Section, subject to the following monetary limits ... £1,000 for any one pedal cycle.
  • What is not insured ... Mechanical, electrical, electronic or computer failure or breakdown ... depreciation, wear and tear [and so on] ... Loss or damage from use for professional, trade or business purposes. ... Loss of or damage to any pedal cycle or its accessories while used for racing. Loss of any pedal cycle left in a public place unless it is locked to a fixed point. Theft of pedal cycle [&c] accessories unless the pedal cycle [&c] is stolen at the same time. Damage to tyres or inner tubes of pedal cycles or wheelchairs by punctures, cuts or bursts.
  • Foreign Use ... up to 60 days in any one Period of Insurance.
  • Claims Settlement Provisions ... cost of repair or of replacement as new if an article is totally lost or destroyed ... An Excess of £50.

Oh and there is no police database of non-stolen bikes at the moment. There are private companies building what look to me like spamming databases by taking in bike and owner details, with much of the advertising and collection cost dumped on the police (and thereby on us, the taxpayers). The police don't make the Data Protection implications clear to people whose bikes they register IMO. The company promoted by Norfolk police says "We will use the information collected ... send you newsletters and details of our products and services, offers and promotions in which we believe you will be interested; understand the interests and buying behaviour of our registered users; enable third parties to carry out technical, logistical or other functions on our behalf." Privacy policy loopholes so big that spammers drive trucks through.

Keep your details yourself and if the bike is nicked, it'll go on the police database along with the other details of the crime.

If any insurer is telling you to register a non-stolen bike on a police database, that's impossible and seems like an Unfair Term to me, so wouldn't be enforceable. I'd probably ask trading standards to take a look but probably I'm grumpy and they wouldn't look anyway ;-)
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
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Sweep
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Re: CTC Insurance

Post by Sweep »

I've found Halifax house insurance to good for adding bikes to though I haven't used the facility for 2 or 3 years as I decided that the bike I was really using it for wasn't so valuable any more.

I haven't examined the CTC insurance I must admit but I do have a vague memory that someone had an issue with it when he found that the some important terms, only available online, had been amended "from under him" on the web page. Luckily he had taken a screenshot/printout of the page.
Sweep
Merry_Wanderer
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Re: CTC Insurance

Post by Merry_Wanderer »

I've got 4 bikes on our 'Sheila's Wheels' Home Insurance policy. They have to be listed separately as they all have a value > £500. They are covered away from the home as long as I have them locked to an 'immovable object'.

There is a £2,000 contents limit for items contained in a locked garage or shed (as I found out yesterday when I looked at the renewal invitation).

Bearing in mind the limitations of the insurance on contents of the shed I will be keeping 3 of the bikes in the house from now on. Does anyone have a home insurance policy that has a higher limit on items in a shed / garage?
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mjr
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Re: CTC Insurance

Post by mjr »

Well, the co-op policy mentioned above says "Home means the private dwelling and its domestic garages, greenhouses and outbuildings forming part of the Buildings" and "Buildings means the private dwelling and its domestic garages, greenhouses and outbuildings, landlord's fixtures and fittings, swimming pools, terraces, drives, footpaths, walls, fences, hedges and gates, all at the Address of the Property Insured specified in the Policy Details". It sounds like you'd need to name higher-than-standard limits and put any expensive bike as a Specified Personal Possession, but I think they would be covered as expected. Check the wording they offer you, nevertheless: new policies may differ and I wouldn't know.

There is a £500 limit on contents in the garden (such as bikes kept under a cover?), but no mention of a different limit to stuff kept inside garages and outbuildings. If they'll insure expensive untagged gardening kit clearly visible in a greenhouse, surely a distinctive frame-numbered bike in a shed or garage is lower risk? The limit of Sheila's Wheels (part of Esure) sounds a bit nasty IMO.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
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chris_suffolk
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Re: CTC Insurance

Post by chris_suffolk »

MKy bike is covered on my house insurance - with e-sure; It's about £20 premium to cover £1500 of bike, and no restrictions such as particular locks and the like
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