Priced out of riding by insurance

[Wildfire]

The sad state of affairs that is bike insurance in London is now at a point where my insurance renewal this year is prohibitively expensive for me to have my bike

Last year’s renewal was a heady £700 parked on my driveway, in the estate where I live.

This year £3800.

A bit of hunting around got me £2200 with a £1000 excess.

The Big Ed gave me £800 (quite reasonable despite their reputation) until they told me about the £3000 excess!!

Nicely my current insurers sent me through the renewal notice with 2 weeks to sort out something else out.

[Gavia]

First off, I’ll try to help with this suggestion. It’s not cheap at £165 for the year on top of the other £800, but it effectively gives you a zero excess on a theft / write off accident. It doesn’t help for a claim sub £3000 though.

https://www.goodbyeexcess.com/product-name/motorbi...

Now the harsh reality. Insurance prices are an effect of claims experience. We all know what London is like currently and I think this situation is going to worsen over the coming years. Like any business insurers won’t offer cover if it’s costing them a lot of money, especially in such a niche product for them.

I feel sorry for the position you’re in, but the biggest thing you can do is focus your anger on the Met Police and their refusal to deal with the theft epidemic and scooter gangs. They’ll try to blame resources, which is fair to an extent, but they also waste a lot of resource on irrelevances too. Personally, I’d be lobbying my MP amd making a lot of noise about the impact.

[Mandat]

Have you considered getting TPO cover, and self-insuring yourself for own damage & theft risks?

[Gavia]

Mandat said:

Have you considered getting TPO cover, and self-insuring yourself for own damage & theft risks?

Do you know what self insuring means? He’s already uncomfortable with a £3000 “self insured” excess, why would he be happier taking even more risk on himself?

[Wildfire]

Thanks Gavia . I didn’t know that product existed. It’s £165, but at least allows me to insure the bike. Currently I’m trying to see whether I can rent a garage from a neighbor.

Else it will mean putting my fun bike into storage as the commuter is more important.

I’ll also be looking to write to my MP for the little good it will do.

As for the police, they may be stretched, but when I was hit, they declined to attend the scene, but they did stop me for 45 min and threatened to come round that evening and take my bike to be crushed as the officer thought I had faked my inurance docs.

[Wildfire]

Mandat said:

Have you considered getting TPO cover, and self-insuring yourself for own damage & theft risks?

As Gavia says self insuring woukd require having around £7k in the bank just in case and I can’t afford that. Plus the TPO premium and excess.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Wildfire said:

Mandat said:

Have you considered getting TPO cover, and self-insuring yourself for own damage & theft risks?

As Gavia says self insuring woukd require having around £7k in the bank just in case and I can’t afford that. Plus the TPO premium and excess.

There would be no excess on tpo, that's the point. But not a great solution on a £7K bike.

Gavia has hit the nail on the head. Not the insurers fault. They aren't a charity. If you can't make money doing business, you either stop doing it or increase the prices to a point where you can make money.

[Mandat]

Gavia said:

Do you know what self insuring means? He’s already uncomfortable with a £3000 “self insured” excess, why would he be happier taking even more risk on himself?

I commuted in London for 6 years with TPO cover, which cost approx £150 per year for a new 600 Hornet. There is no excess to pay in the event of a TP claim.

TPFT or comp cover was significantly higher, mostly due to the risk of theft, but I was happy to self insure that risk, mainly because I had secure parking at home and at the office.

I appreciate that not everyone's appetite for risk is the same, but perhaps the OP may not have considered this as an option, hence sharing my own experiences of biking in London.

[Gavia]

Mandat said:

I commuted in London for 6 years with TPO cover, which cost approx £150 per year for a new 600 Hornet. There is no excess to pay in the event of a TP claim.

TPFT or comp cover was significantly higher, mostly due to the risk of theft, but I was happy to self insure that risk, mainly because I had secure parking at home and at the office.

I appreciate that not everyone's appetite for risk is the same, but perhaps the OP may not have considered this as an option, hence sharing my own experiences of biking in London.

There is never an excess to pay on a TP claim.

That’s great for you to take on that risk, but the OP made it clear in his first post that an excess of £3000 was too big a risk for him, so how could he take on a greater risk by not insuring the bike at all?

He’s made it even clearer since.

People overplay the words self insure, when what you really mean is don’t insure.

[Trevor555]

Sad times when we have to pay through the nose because of criminal activity.

Do they have the scooter gang problem on the continent?

There's loads more bikes on the road there, how do they deal with it?

Our Police forces seem to be more inactive than ever, budget cuts? or human rights?

[Mandat]

Gavia said:

There is never an excess to pay on a TP claim.

That’s great for you to take on that risk, but the OP made it clear in his first post that an excess of £3000 was too big a risk for him, so how could he take on a greater risk by not insuring the bike at all?

He’s made it even clearer since.

People overplay the words self insure, when what you really mean is don’t insure.

The OP asked for opinions on his predicament, and I simply gave him the benefit of my own experience of biking in London. He may have not even considered the option of TPO cover, and this may give him food for thought.

I was happy to self insure my £5,000 bike based on cheap TPO cover, but I wouldn't have been happy with a £3,000 excess on an expensive TPFT/comp policy.

In my view, it's not simply a case of comparing the excess with the cost of the bike, because other factors are also relevant; such as difference in premium costs, likely hood of a claim being made, likely hood of premium hikes for years after a claim, loss of NCB, etc.

Finally, I'm sorry if I incorrectly used the phrase "self insure". To me it means not taking out an insurance policy and just covering potential costs out of your own pocket, if the situation arises. I'd be interested to hear what the correct definition is.

[black-k1]

Gavia said:

People overplay the words self insure, when what you really mean is don’t insure.

I don't agree with that statement. To me, and I think to many, "don't insure" is illegal and means having no insurance at all. "Self insure" means you cover your own bike but everything else (including/especially legal requirements) is covered by a recognised policy.

[Gavia]

Self insure is where you place an amount of money on deposit to cover the whole potential loss. In your case it would’ve meant placing £5000 in a savings account amd not being able to touch it until you either sell, insure or wrote off the bike. Should you need to repair damage as you go, then you’d have to top up the account back tomthe £5000 bike value.

Not insuring, which is far more appropriate is where you simply buy a TPO policy and hope your bike isn’t crashed, written off or stolen. You could also buy a TPF&T policy and hope it’s not crashed.

If you want to go the true extent of describing self-insurance, it’s where you lodge a deposit with then Treasury (I think it’s £500k per vehicle) and then you don’t need to buy any insurance at all for that vehicle. Of course, if there is a claim you have to pay any amount that you’re liable for over and above the £500k. Unsurprisingly, virtually nobody (or any company) takes this option.

There is a lot of misinformation around self insurance too. Many say that the Post Office, or police are self insured, but they aren’t. What they have is a huge excess (aggregate deductible) where all claims are added together and only once that figure (could be as high as £1m) is exceeeded do their insurers take over paying all future claims for that year.

[black-k1]

I've missed these types of discussion!

I'll continue "self insuring" my cars (as I have TPF&T cover) without having an allocated set of savings in the bank, under the mattress or anywhere else. If I need to pay for damage or replace the car I'll add the cost to normal expenditure happy in the knowledge that I have not "not insured"!

[Mandat]

Thanks. So my definition was more or less correct after all.

[Gavia]

Mandat said:

Thanks. So my definition was more or less correct after all.

Apart from it not being correct. Yes.

[Wildfire]

Gavia said:

Stuff about self insuring.

Very interesting! I have learned today.

Update is that the fun bike will be moving to my folk's garage and the commuting bike is going in the garage. Even so, with a tracker, alarm and data tag this is still coming in very high, or with Big Ed and a BIG excess. The excess protector may be the way forward, although my hunt for a garage continues.

[STe_rsv4]

Mandat said:

Have you considered moving away from London ?

Fixed that.

Seriously though, living up north we have to deal with the constant drizzle / cold / mackems and smoggies but at least we don't have to pay thro the nose for insurance compared to down saaaf.

[Gavia]

black-k1 said:

I don't agree with that statement. To me, and I think to many, "don't insure" is illegal and means having no insurance at all. "Self insure" means you cover your own bike but everything else (including/especially legal requirements) is covered by a recognised policy.

Unsurprising that you disagree with me. The key is in understanding what’s being insured / not insured.

The OP is concerned about his own damage. That’s whats uninsured if he takes a TPO / TPF&T policy. Obviously not insuring the bike at all is a legal no-no.

[Hungrymc]

That's a shocking increase OP.

Do you have any other things driving the quote up (Unresolved claims etc?)

Both bikes on the one policy or is this just the renewal for your fun bike?