UKH

Hi

I don't think that I can meet the security requirement of bike insurance.

I have just taken out insurance for my new ebike.

The bike cost just over £6,000 and the insurance just under £300.

Firstly, I am very lucky to be able to spend such a lot of money on one bike (I have recently retired). I am having great fun with it.

However, having now carefully read the policy documents, I don't think that I can meet all the security requirements!

The issues are:

Locks: Obviously gold standard, of which I have a few. The bike needs to be secured to an immovable object, including the wheels. In practice this means 2 or three locks, depending on the type of 'immovable object'. 

At home, in the shed, this is just about possible, but requires 3 long gold standard chain locks to secure the frame and both wheels to the anchor on the floor (it's an MTB with a long wheelbase).

However, the shed door needs to be secured with either a '5-lever mortice lock', a 'Chubb lock' or a 'CEN Grade 3 closed shackle padlock'. Although I have 3 very strong closed shackle padlocks to the door of the shed, they are not CEN grade 3.

Outside is more difficult. Attaching the bike and wheels to the standard 'Sheffield' stand can be done with one long 'D' lock and one chain. However, the combined weight of the locks is almost 6kg! 

I will be carrying the bike on the Fiamma rack that hangs off the rear of my van. However, it is bolted on and is not 'lockable' as required by the insurance.

Furthermore, the bike is not insured while on the van, even when locked, from 9pm to 8am. I often take my bike on holidays that frequently involve driving after 9pm!

I did ask about fitting a BikeTrax GPS unit (this is fitted inside the motor & shows the location of the bike), but was told that this would be treated as an accessory and would result in a slight increase in the premium.

I can obviously buy some approved padlocks for the shed, which would be around £100.

However, securing the bike while away from home is much more of a problem and certainly very impractical, if not impossible.

Has anyone else had such issues with insurance?

Does anyone have a workable solution?

Cheers,

Ian

Nope... my conclusion:

1. Insurance companies are immoral bastards who will always end up taking your money but never pay up.  Put the cash aside instead.

2. Don't tell anyone about your expensive bike, especially on public forums.

3. Don't leave your bike unattended/out of sight when not at home and locked up.  Ever.

Can't comment on locks, but if you're driving after 9pm with it, I can't see how likely it would be that it'll get nicked off a moving car? Or do you mean cover for damage aswell? 

I suppose you might stop at services, but probably best to just lock up with the locks you have and be quick/keep an eye in it... same would apply when anywhere away from home i would have thought. I don't really leave my bike out of sight, had too many nicked over the years!

You should only need to change/add one CEN grade 3 lock to meet the requirements?

I wouldn't be leaving a bike like that anywhere in public, thieves would just cut the stand if they wanted it. 

Get the nuts welded to the bolts if you don't plan to remove it?

Is that just for theft? I don't think anyone's going to nick it while your moving!

You should only need one, no? Squire do one for £35

Have a solid anchor welded to the underside of your van or tow bar perhaps?

Just some ideas. They certainly haven't made it easy for you but it is a high value item.

Edit - I agree with Crayefish above, especially point 1.

Change your insurer.  My £5500 Orbea Wild is fully covered on the house insurance with no caveats whatsoever. I have however put bolts on the garage doors, boarded up the window and locked the bike using one of those irremovable brackets and an Abus Granite lock following the theft of a previous bike a few years ago that was very poorly secured.

have you. claimed on your house insurance for a 5k bike theft?

insurance only shows its value after a claim,

i am with Cycleplan, costs me £350 a yr.  and they have paid out twice.    Now thats value in my eyes

No but I did check this time round after claiming for a £3500 bike theft a few years ago.  This was settled with no hassle for the full amount despite the bike being very insecurely stored. I should add that it does not cover theft when away from home but in those circumstance I never leave the bike out of my sight.

Our house will cover road bikes , mountain bikes etc of what ever value but not ebike, annoyingly 

I read a report that the low lifes are intercepting cycle riders on the road/canal tow path/track and nicking their bikes. I wonder how the insurance company would view that scenario?

https://road.cc/content/news/two-more-cyclists-robbed-moped-gang-bikejackin...

I live in a very, very low crime area.  The police were very surprised.  At the time I had invited several builders round to quote for works and I am convinced it was spotted then. It was begging to be taken.  It wasn't locked up at all and they broke in through the garage window at the rear to get at it.  Lesson learned.

I was just speculating whether they would pay out if you were mugged for your bike. Worth checking I feel.

He's pretty much covered it all, but worth adding:

Don't ever leave the bike unattended on the rack at a service station. We take it in turns to piss on long drives.

Buy a decent Pragmasis or Almax chain.  All the orders are just a joke, especially Abus.

We have just over 11 metres of 14 and 16mm chains that lock the bikes together then loop round the rear axle of the van for any times when the piss seperately rule above isn't practical.

Don't store the bike in the shed or garage. Store it in the house.

Just to add ...

I got the cheapest bike I could find that did the job (an E-Go Max for £1500-odd), black-taped over all the decals for multiple reasons, and bought the D-clamp and a 2m hawser. Aviva cover that anywhere, but I can't check the details at the moment as I'm on mobile data with one bar.

I often need to leave it at one end of a walk, so I have two strategies for that.

The first is to leave it at a hotel etc, and make some arrangement with them. If it's in the middle of nowhere I attach it to a tree, and cover it with one of those green garden refuse bags; although clearly a bit dodgy, this has worked very well so far, fingers crossed.

Just look after it as if it's not insured.

The Dutch have a similar tactic (for their commuting bikes).  They often paint them ridiculous nasty colours to deter thieves (who wants to ride a neon green and pink polkadot bike?) and mark it in a unique way.

Not a path I'd choose though, I'd have to say...

I would, where can I buy one? :-P

I spent a week cycling around the Netherlands this summer, going through The Hague, Haarlem, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Gouda and Delft. It's fantastic, everyone should do it. I don't remember any being painted like that - but maybe I was just blind. I do remember there being zillions of bikes coating every surface of city centres. See this photo of Utrecht. That, I thought, was their main defence against being stolen. Well, that and being the crappiest bike around, for which there was strong competition. A great place to go cycling.

 

If I stop at services I lock the bike to the rack and a cable that's threaded through one of the car wheels.  I also have a cable lock with a plate that gets shut inside the car door on the other side to make it as awkward as possible to nick the bike.  If the thing is going to be left for any time, the bike gets chained to a car wheel.

Just don't drive off without resettting.....

Was with you right up until that point. Cable locks are utterly useless unless you can see your bike.

I was gobsmacked when my housemate set about one of mine with a set of cheap household plier things.

Have a look at https://sundaysinsurance.co.uk/ I am not certain if it meets all your requirements. Read the T&C. If you have Strava Premium you get a discount.

If I leave my bike out on the hill (if I cycle into a climb) I always take the axles out as at least no one will cycle off with it!

That's an interesting idea. I've often thought about cycling in to more remote crags but been put off by the whole security thing, thinking that any joker could jump on and zip off down the hill. Considering that anyone chancing upon a locked bike in the remote hills is unlikely to have any serious cutting tools you wouldn't even need a substantial lock.

I've generally only done it in Scotland (where I've done it quite a lot) I don't own an e bike though alas. Sometimes I take a small lock, generally I hide it in a ditch or bush.

Entirely agree - but I don't have a strong chain long enough, so rely on the faff factor for a quick stop.  Anything longer and it's chained to a wheel

I used to have some rust patch effect transfers that one could apply to any steel bike. Instant rustbucket.

Alas I've mislaid them but they were a good idea.

Im dying to know if you have the balls to leave the wheels in place?

I do similar at cafe stops and am always tempted to leave the wheel in just to watch the carnage if someone did ride off on it.

But I always bottle it in case that someone is me

I regularly lock my bike up at crags by chaining it to a tree or through a thread between some boulders. Although not as expensive as an ebike it seems to work, but some bellend nicked my rear light while it was at Stanage the other week. If I'm leaving it for a longer duration I often make some effort to hide it with some bracken or something as well.

Friend who had a battered, ancient wreck of a bike came out of the pub to find somebody had stolen her lock but left the bike.

Nicking lights is a proper dick thing. Imagine getting splatted on the way home after some tool has nicked your lights. I had my lights nicked outside a pub in Sheffield, I thought they'd be fine because they were bolted on but thief just snapped the brackets making them pretty useless to anyone so even more irritating. I had a slow 7 mile  ride home on the pavement after that.

Would probably work on carbon bikes too... assuming your average bike thief isn't as sharp as their tools.

Dutch Gumtree

Certainly how it works in Copenhagen. 99% of people just use a ring lock on the back wheel, becasue when your bike is one of a thousand, you only need a few people to have a bike more desirable than yours.

After a bit of a discussion with the insurer, they have now agreed to amend their security requirements and have sent me written confirmation. It is now acceptable to use one gold lock to secure the frame to an immovable object and a non-gold cable to secure the wheels. I will also now be insured when the bike is on the back of the van at night, provided that I have sight of the bike, which I usually do as I'm in the van driving it! So a good outcome. However, in the last week or so I have looked at lots of policy docs. My personal view is that many household insurers do not provide sufficient cover, especially for high value bikes. Additionally, all bike insurers are slowly increasing the security requirements. This is understandable given the rise in thefts and the increasing value of bikes, especially ebikes, such as mountain or cargo bikes. However, my concern is that some requirements may be impracticable for many users - we shall see. In the meantime I will get a GPS tracker fitted (on order), continue to be careful with my bike security and most importantly - get out and ride it.

My bike is insured, but I treat it as uninsured for theft outside of the house or car and never leave it unattended. 

My house insurer covered my £4200 ebike for £58 in 2019. This did get stolen from Sheffield city centre and they payed out in full without asking about the type of locks. They did stipulate gold standard locks but Obviously the locks disappeared along with the bike so no one can prove what they were.

I now have an Apple AirTag hidden on my bike, which has worked on the original battery for two years. We also have one on the cat’s collar which has just reported a low battery after two years. 

How effectively can you hide an AirTag on a bike from someone clued up enough to look for one?

Hiding it should be fairly easy, the big issue with using air tags for security though is that they will alert the thief to their presence if the thief has an iPhone with an alarm. Apple included this feature to stop you from tracking people with them but it does make them pointless for tracking stolen items (which I don't believe Apple has ever marketed them for)

Wha????

You say it only needs CEN 3 which is *not* a very high standard and not "gold standard" CEN 3 is a medium security level and you can get common CEN 3 padlocks like Abus Titalium closed shackle for £25-£35 so no idea where you get £100 from for your shed door. 

I have two doors to the bike store and 3 padlocks on each.

Ever since some kids nicked all the quick releases from all the bikes at the station and chucked them on the tracks/in the bushes, my hack bikes have had anti-theft QRs.

I've also had saddle and seatpost nicked before outside a pub.

On my mountain bike, I lock through the forks between bridge and crown, too.

You’d only need to replace one padlock on each door though, surely? The insurer presumably hasn’t stipulated that you need three locks per door so only one needs to meet their standard.

Separate thought; is 3 padlocks per door appreciably more secure than 1? Presumably if someone has come prepared to cut one lock off then they can just as easily cut 3.

Yes, only two locks need to be CEN 3.

I eventually found out that the current locks are CEN 3!

Three locks may not deter a determined thief, but it may slow them down.

The door was always the lesser issue.

The insurance company has now changed the security requirements for locking the bike to a more practical, but still secure approach.

Nonetheless, I still get the impression that insurers are slowly increasing premiums and security requirements as bike values grow and thefts continue.

On my ebike it is hidden in the motor and would not be a quick job to find and remove.

I don't really understand your reply as my AirTag is paired with my phone and a friend's phone can't see it. Also it's quite easy to track people with if they carry it on them although you can do that with the iPhone itself if they agree. Am I missing something?

If your friend “travels with” your AirTag (in/on your bike)  they could get to know it’s there.

I think the poster was referring to the unwanted tacking alert. If a thief takes the item with the AirTag, after a period of time they, if they have an iphone more quickly than if they don’t, may receive an alert that “they” are being tracked.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cycling/comments/mv71lw/airtag_as_anti_theft_devic... .

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227

Its not clear how long it takes but if the thief has an up to date iPhone and travels with the airtag for a period of time then their phone will notify them of the airtag and eventually am alarm will go off on their phone

Oh gosh, never mind the bike, what about Baz’s poor cat?! According to that support article, if the cat leaves the house or Baz goes out for long enough then an alarm will be going off in the poor beast’s collar whenever it moves!

Edit: seems it doesn’t take very long for the alert to go off. My partner just told me she gets an alert if I’ve left my AirPods in the car and she rarely drives very far alone. 

From Apple support article above: “To alert people nearby, any AirTag separated for a period of time from its owner will emit a sound when it's moved.”

Take the AirTag out of the poor cat’s collar.

We're they fixed with standard hex bolts?

Probably worth swapping over to security torx fixings to slow down/put off the scumbags.