Home insurance that covers E-bikes in and out of the house?

[likelysuspect]

Just had a letter today to say that M+S house insurance is no longer!

We're covered until this summer and then they're saying they dont offer home insurance any more

It was the only insurance that I could find, which took ages and ages and ages to find at the time, that covers ebikes in and out of the house

There is 'ebike' insurance but it costs an absolute bomb, way more than the bikes even cost and way more than standard home insurance.

Ebikes arent easy to filter for, or possible to filter for (from memory) when I was trying to find it via insurance comparison sites. We've had the bikes for about 5 years so we've used M+S since then

Anyone else have insurance that covers these? They're quite expensive too so the amount needs to be right.

We use an advisor and she managed to get cover for e-bikes from LV insurance.

Thanks, just having an explore with them now, they only cover up to 1k per bike as standard but you would have to add the bike as a specified item as ours cost more than that.

I just have mine insured just as bikes, I have a number of expensive bikes, one electric and the others not. I’ve had them insured via Barclays and more recently with Aviva. Both times they were all listed individually and cost about £80 to insure them on top of the home insurance. I lost all my bikes in a fire and they paid out for all of them, there was never any mention that one bike was electric. Never crossed my mind to tell them, didn’t make a difference when they paid out.

I don't know the specifics as the advisor did it for us. She doesn't charge us as she gets commission from the insurance companies I think

I might be confusing matters, I just mean the price of them is more

Ive just trawled through the comparison site and the standard for a bike is £350 and then you can add individual bikes on for more, but the problem with comparison sites is they come back with companies Ive never heard of

Tesco seem to do bikes as standard without an apparent limit, as far as I can gather

Ive just spent absolutely ages going through a quote and the site has crashed saying sorry, come back later

I hate this stuff.

I think I got mine through Policy Expert, though it won't cover any left for over 12 hours out of the house.

Look at the incidents of them catching fire! Who would have one in the house? They are absolutely not pedal bikes. So if you don’t declare them, you won’t be insured if they cause a fire. One every 2 days according to London Fire Brigade. Keep them in a shed outside well away from anything flammable! Or people sleeping!

The cheapest quote coming up is Sheila's Wheels, Ive heard of them, are they any good does anyone know?

£219 for the year at the moment, although we dont renew until June

It allowed me to add the bikes individually and says 'cover away from home' but doesnt specify a time actually

We go on holiday with them all the time so need that.

I havent bothered with the Tesco one again because it took so bloody long and crashed on me. I have a clubcard, I wonder if its worth trying to do it again

I have separate bike insurance so I’m covered for theft, accidental damage and third party cover. You can pay monthly; your home insurance could go up a lot if you had a bike claim and that’s fairly likely.

We're with Sheila's Wheels for house insurance for a similar reason, although our expensive bikes are pushbikes. They seem fine, although (luckily!) I've never had to claim.

This had never occurred to me...

I got mine added on to our Direct Line insurance no bother at all, was only something like £25 for the year for£1400 ebike.

Are you talking about electrically assisted pedal cycles or those which are classed as road vehicles because it probably makes a difference.

We have expensive mountain bikes, some of which are electrically assisted and our home insurance covers these at reasonable cost, we're with Aviva.

Its a good point although we've never claimed on home insurance for anything

The problem was the bike insurance I looked at, several companies when we first bought them was so expensive, hugely costly

Ah ok. Yeah I don’t think anywhere will cover an expensive bike as standard. I think I’ve had a policy with Tesco before and pretty sure they had to be specified. So any home insurance company I’d have thought would cover them if you pay extra as an add on. Do look at the small print. So with Aviva when at home they have to be in a shed/outbuilding with a minimum 5 point lock….i had to get a new lock. But they don’t have to be locked to something in the shed. With Barclays they also had to be chained in the shed.

barclays said out of the home they had to be locked with a gold standard lock. Aviva said any lock would do which was better as I didn’t have to carry a heavy lock.

i have previously used bike insurance specific companies like Cycleplan and Yellow Jersey.

Where do you get the separate bike insurance from, please? I do worry about this, and also if I'm at the station for a long day at work it can be 14-15 hours.

It’s going to make a huge difference if they are a fire risk!

Aviva covers £5k per bike

Thanks the problem with Aviva, they're not on the comparison sites so its a faff to go through each of these individually, lik ethe Tesco one which I havent revisited yet

Im also a bit concerned about what someone said about needing certain standards of locks on the sheds as we just keep them in bog standard sheds, we dont have a 5 point lock on it and woujldnt be able to fit it on, its a plastic shed.

Sheila's Wheels gave coverage by me adding in the value of each of the bikes but I dont know if they have funny locking requirements for when they're in the house. Obviously when we're out and about they are locked on the car or locked to wherever we are visiting.

Could you add a hasp with a 5 point padlock on the shed? Thats what mine has, it doesn’t need to be a mortice lock.

I didnt know these things existed, I will have a look at the layout of the lock

I’ve just set mine up with Aviva with an e-bike and all their different options came up on the Money Saving Expert comparison site. It was very good value.

This was the padlock I got. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J3RE2IM?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2

5 lever.

then you need a high security hasp. Like this, but don’t know about fitting them on plastic sheds. https://www.ironmongerydirect.co.uk/product/abus-series-125-high-security-hasp-&-staple-150-x-60mm-black-388195?vat=1&GSP=true&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22180738972&gbraid=0AAAAAD-uRIRE-hINtMoZA0KXs0o1wNzK7&gclid=CjwKCAjw-J3OBhBuEiwAwqZ_h5_kBzUqcoaOzcZlg5t6k88n0X7xZjex-V_2w1vrtc-3dHhtPCl8xhoCaUwQAvD_BwE

Unfortunately, making sure your bikes are covered is a tedious faff, but you need to do it properly if you want to be paid out if they are stolen.

Even if you can get a quote for Aviva via a comparison site, you need to check the small print, as the detail about high value bikes is often missed until you enter the information again. And yes you do need to expect the price to go up unfortunately. Bike theft is rife and thieves put a lot of effort into targetting high value bikes. We suspect I may have been followed home with my bike on a bike rack or seen on a local ride when mine was stolen as we live quite out of the way.

But Aviva are worth pursuing because you only need to tell them about the value of the most expensive bike and they cover all bikes for reasonable cost - we have 3 bikes worth about £20k in total and our B&C insurance including worldwide cover for the bikes is about £300 per year. But that's for now. M&S were the 'go to' provider for years (and my insurer when my £3k bike was stolen) because they covered all bikes up to £4k (when that was a lot for a bike) automatically, so they got known for this, especially on Singletrackworld, the MTB enthusiasts forum. So they probably had a lot of big claims and reduced the cover levels.

But you need to make sure you meet the security conditions. So a basic shed and cheap locks might not cut it. My bike was stolen because my Kryptonite New York Fahgettaboutit Lock, which is an illustration of the type you need, was cut with power tools while we were at work - it won't have been a quick job. We now have better security including DP getting an alert on his phone from the security camera if anyone enters the attached garage where we keep our bikes.