Move back to London, Insurance says No!!

[croyde]

2 years ago I had my Vespa 300 insured in London, left outside, for around £100 TPFT.

I moved out to Surrey and have been paying £80 but last week I'm back in my old haunt, SW London, except this time I have gated parking.

My BMW saw no increase in premium yet my bike broker says that my current insurer won't cover me and after a short while on hold they came back with............


Aviva at £354, for a feking scooter. I'm 55, ridden since I was 17, all in London but due to a short break only have 7 years NCB.

I was paying half that for my Street Triple at fully comp, 3 years ago.

Thanks to the authorities not clamping down on bike theft in London I guess, fk, fk fking fk!!!!!

I said no way I was paying that. Although I was planing to use it more, now that I was back in town, I'll just stick to public transport and my car thanks.

Any advice on where to try, as there are billions of scooters on the commute in London and I'm sure they are not all paying silly money to insurance companies.

Maybe it'll be cheaper to insure a big bike?

So meanwhile, in a car park, somewhere in Surrey, sits my Vespa with no insurance.

[555 Paul]

Maybe that's the answer, price bikes off of London's roads. No bikes = scrotes move on to the next easy target It's a bloody silly state of affairs, the problem is just ignored.

[Pothole]

How do you suggest, exactly, that "the authorities" (who do you mean by the way?) "clamp down" on motorcycle theft?

Try and limit yourself to sensible, possible, affordable ideas if you can.

[Cbull]

Just steal one and use that

Really though, it's sad state of affairs with insurance in London at the moment it seems. I do feel sorry you all. Unfortunately there neither seems to be an honest quick fix solution nor a long term solution being implemented.

[dibblecorse]

Its possibly more to do with the fact its a scooter, suspect it may be less for a cheapo geared bike that would do the same job, these things are going missing at an alarming rate ...

Also suspect most using them in London are sucking up the premiums as its still cheaper than c1k a year for a season ticket with more freedom ...

Its a crap state of affairs though ..

[croyde]

Insurance company wanted £50 quid to cancel the policy with 7 months to go. Down to £15 after arguing. OK, it's in their terms.

But it was them cancelling it. My bottom hurts.

Went to the Meercats and the cheapest quote was £128, next cheapest was £250.

Went with the cheap one. Insurance is just a piece of paper to show cops, hopefully no more than that.

MCE is the company. You can only contact them via a premium rate telephone line. Fingers crossed I don't have to.

At least I've got 2 for 1 cinema tickets tho.

[pozi]

croyde said:

Insurance company wanted £50 quid to cancel the policy with 7 months to go. Down to £15 after arguing. OK, it's in their terms.

But it was them cancelling it. My bottom hurts.

Went to the Meercats and the cheapest quote was £128, next cheapest was £250.

Went with the cheap one. Insurance is just a piece of paper to show cops, hopefully no more than that.

MCE is the company. You can only contact them via a premium rate telephone line. Fingers crossed I don't have to.

At least I've got 2 for 1 cinema tickets tho.

MCE = Insurance is just a piece of paper. Sums them up quite well !!

[croyde]

And what's with the Third Party Only being more expensive than TPFT.

Makes no sense to me.

[abw280]

Typical TPO risk profile is higher than TPFT. If you can only afford TPO then insurers deem you to be a higher risk category as it's usually youngsters driving/riding vehicles they can't afford to properly insure. Hence why TPFT is cheaper (usually) than TPO. Lot's of insurers, esp the bigger household names, won't offer TPO for this reason.

[tjlazer]

It's a complete scandal that third party only cover costs more, given you are legally required to hold it. The government should at least allow people to legally insure themselves for sensible money, if they choose to self insure their vehicle they shouldn't be penalised for it. To be honest I would be quite happy self insuring if it brought down my costs on insuring my bike in London, but the current situation doesn't allow this.

[Ardennes92]

You used to be able to get Road Traffic Act Insurance which offers even less than TPO and not always available but could be cheaper but less can sometimes be more😋

[sjtscott]

croyde said:

Insurance company wanted £50 quid to cancel the policy with 7 months to go. Down to £15 after arguing. OK, it's in their terms.

But it was them cancelling it. My bottom hurts.

Went to the Meercats and the cheapest quote was £128, next cheapest was £250.

Went with the cheap one. Insurance is just a piece of paper to show cops, hopefully no more than that.

MCE is the company. You can only contact them via a premium rate telephone line. Fingers crossed I don't have to.

At least I've got 2 for 1 cinema tickets tho.

MCE are now using a non premium rate number. You can find it on their website now - they actually tell you on their phone line the new number and to redial.
Sadly they were my ONLY option for a non garaged bike in East London this year to keep it reasonable (just sub £400, next best I could find £700) options very very limited now.The mandatory excess is £1k+ meaning I'll be paying for anything less than that myself rather than claim. Basically its for total loss/write off cover now as far as I'm concerned.

[sjtscott]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'd say sadly you're getting the double shaft because of your claim and your postcode then- you should be cheaper than me having a garage and living further NE of E14 where I currently do.

Edited by sjtscott on Friday 26th January 15:30

[abw280]

Here's me smugly thinking about my last renewal premium £182.00 (fully comp for 3 bikes - ZXR750, GPZ750 and Ducati S4 916), I wonder though when the crazy premium will start to spread up North, I've got a Glasgow postcode so I'm not exactly a low risk area.

It's only a mater of time before the rest of us start paying for the London problems.

[Dog Star]

Very true - I’m waiting for the “thefts have gone through the roof” when renewal time comes.

[croyde]

I've been trying different bikes in case it's the Vespa that's the problem but it seems that only MCE have premiums at sensible money.

A couple of years ago I'd get a lot of choice on MeerKats when I was thinking of a BMW R1200GS but now it's MCE at 700 quid or one other company at 8 thousand quid.

My 30 odd grand brand new 410bhp Mustang was only 300 quid fully comp with business.

[sjtscott]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

it will go up.. wait till the ULEZ kicks in from April 2019... the legit stters (pre july 2007 reg) will be forced out of central london then, that is unless it nicked or has a false plate on it. Less stters = more newer bikes = more thefts = bigger premiums etc etc

[TheInternet]

abw280 said:

Hence why TPFT is cheaper (usually) than TPO.

So it is, thanks. £35 saved and the not unlikely fire scenario covered too. In fact TPFT was the same price as FC.

[trickywoo]

Pothole said:

How do you suggest, exactly, that "the authorities" (who do you mean by the way?) "clamp down" on motorcycle theft?

Try and limit yourself to sensible, possible, affordable ideas if you can.

Is this even a serious post or do I need a whoosh parrot?

I'm not an expert on it but I suspect like most crime there will be relatively few people involved. There aren't 1,000s of people in London stealing bikes.

The authorities are clearly the police and judicial system. The police need to catch people and the judicial system needs to let them do it and then issue a punishment that stops other people wanting to fill the void.

A good start would be to have 'bait' bikes with police squads in wait. Once you've made easy targets much more difficult and locked some people up and punishments for stealing from privatre properties / hijacking much more severe you will have made good progress.

The police / judicial have left this too long. We aren't a country where this level and type of crime should be tolerated.

[anonymous-user]

trickywoo said:

Is this even a serious post or do I need a whoosh parrot?

I'm not an expert on it but I suspect like most crime there will be relatively few people involved. There aren't 1,000s of people in London stealing bikes.

The authorities are clearly the police and judicial system. The police need to catch people and the judicial system needs to let them do it and then issue a punishment that stops other people wanting to fill the void.

A good start would be to have 'bait' bikes with police squads in wait. Once you've made easy targets much more difficult and locked some people up and punishments for stealing from privatre properties / hijacking much more severe you will have made good progress.

The police / judicial have left this too long. We aren't a country where this level and type of crime should be tolerated.

What I guess annoys me the most is that it’s not given the attention it deserves, when one considers that bike theft is carried out by people engaged in a whole raft of petty (and less so) crime such as mugging, acid attack etc.

So start tackling the thieves and you pick up the scrotes doing the more headline ‘worthy’ crimes too.

But no, let’s just blame bike makers for the problem, instead...