Insurance for CTC members

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Azeem
Posts: 33
Joined: 2 Dec 2009, 10:43pm

Insurance for CTC members

Post by Azeem »

I'm thinking of joining CTC; one of the attractions is that membership seems to include free insurance. The thing is, I can't seem to find any details about this insurance on the website. I've recently bought a new bike, and insurance is on my mind, especially as someone put glue in my D-lock yesterday. I just want to insure my bike, primarily against theft. Will joining CTC provide that, and if so what are the Ts and Cs? I may have missed it on the site, but I've had a good look.
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georgew
Posts: 1526
Joined: 27 Jan 2007, 4:23pm

Re: Insurance for CTC members

Post by georgew »

I had a look at insuring with the CTC but found this more expensive than other options.
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meic
Posts: 19355
Joined: 1 Feb 2007, 9:37pm
Location: Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen)

Re: Insurance for CTC members

Post by meic »

The free insurance provided is third party insurance in case you are liable for any damage that you do to somebody else, eg a crash which is your fault.
You have to pay MUCH more to insure your bike against being stolen.
Yma o Hyd
Azeem
Posts: 33
Joined: 2 Dec 2009, 10:43pm

Re: Insurance for CTC members

Post by Azeem »

Interesting. So, any recommendations for getting my bike insured against theft? The Cyclecover link on the CTC site quoted me about £65 for a £750 bike. I've no idea if that's cheap or dear.
Malaconotus
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Joined: 30 Jul 2010, 11:31pm
Location: Chapel Allerton, Leeds
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Re: Insurance for CTC members

Post by Malaconotus »

If you already have home contents insurance naming your bike on that policy is often the cheapest way to get cover. My two bikes are covered for £750 and £400 respectively; there was no increase to my premium for adding these.

Graham
gremlin
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Joined: 1 Sep 2010, 11:39am
Location: Swansea, South Wales
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Re: Insurance for CTC members

Post by gremlin »

Azeem wrote:Interesting. So, any recommendations for getting my bike insured against theft? The Cyclecover link on the CTC site quoted me about £65 for a £750 bike. I've no idea if that's cheap or dear.



I changed my house and contents insurance to Marks and Spencer insurance and that covers me for any item up to the value of £4k that I take out from my house, including bicycle's. The other bonus was that the M & S insurance offered a lot more than my previous house insurance provider and was only £20 quid a year more.

I looked at some cycle specific insurance and most of them wanted the same sort of premium (£350 pa) as I pay for my 2 year old 1200cc BMW motorbike!

The M & S was a no brainer especially when the specialist cycle insurers also insist on expensive Gold standard locks at about £80 upwards.

Hope this helps.
Simon
AKA - Gremlin

"The glass is always half full"
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Simon L6
Posts: 1382
Joined: 4 Jan 2007, 12:43pm

Re: Insurance for CTC members

Post by Simon L6 »

that may be an expensive mistake......

http://velopoly.com/2011/03/03/burglary ... rest-made/

Home and contents insurance rip off from AXA via Marks and Spencer – claim refused
Posted on 28 February 2011

Following the theft of eight of our bicycles last week, the response from the readers of this blog, as well as hundreds of people on Twitter, Facebook, YACF, Cyclechat, LFGSS and various other forums has been awesome. I don’t think I’ve had as many page views as I had for the post I made on the 24th and it’s amazing to see the way that the cycling community comes together when someone asks for some help. So thank you to everyone; Julian and I are really grateful.

Although our search for the missing bikes continues, I thought I’d post and tell you about the Insurance company. Like a lot of other cycling households, we have our house and contents cover provided by Marks and Spencer. They were recommended to us for their high quality cover and good customer service. M&S insurance offers a lot of benefits to cyclists, including a high value for each cycle and unlimited cycles on the policy. It’s a bit pricier than other cheaper insurers, but with around twenty bikes between us, including a Santana tandem, we wanted good cover so we were happy to pay for it.

When I took out the policy a couple of years ago, I specifically asked whether we would be covered in our rented garage one street away from the house. They said yes. I was so concerned that I asked for a letter to be sent to me that made mention of this and thankfully we still have that letter in our files.

When I called up the claims line after we discovered the burglary, we were initially told that we weren’t covered at this address because we were in the process of moving house. Julian had called them to arrange transfer of our policy from the old place to the new place and informed them of the date of the move. Despite us still living at the old address when I claimed last week, they had our electronic records as the new address so they said we weren’t covered.

Needless to say, once the situation was explained (at length – this took a number of phone calls) this was sorted out. The address was right, we did do what we were supposed to do. However…

The man on the end of the phone explained to me that “on this occasion Miss Barnes, we’re sorry to say that we won’t be able to take this claim forward any further…” (don’t you just hate the weasel words these people use?)

He went onto explain that although we were covered when we took the policy out, M&S have subsequently changed our insurance providers from Aviva to AXA. He said that we were sent a booklet that illustrated the policy changes between the two companies and one of them was that we were no longer covered in our rented garage. Now, needless to say, we still have these booklets and both reading them back then as well as again now, this policy change is far from clear. Had it have been, we would most certainly have raised this as an issue because the whole point of this policy was to cover our precious bicycles.

I was stunned – I couldn’t believe that they were doing this to us. I think I used some fairly frank language to the man from M&S – I must have done, he threatened to hang up the call on me (In the event it was me who hung up on him). Clearly, for high value claims, their tactic is to refuse payment as soon as possible. Interestingly, although AXA had a good reputation, Aviva had more consumer complaints referred to the financial ombudsman (FOS) than any other insurer in the last six months of last year.

Julian has subsequently explained Lord Denning’s Big Red Hand to me and it would appear that we have a very good chance of overturning this decision at the Ombudsman. But until then folks, check your insurance policies VERY carefully.

And whatever you do, don’t buy an insurance policy from Marks and Spencers or AXA. Especially if you’re relying on it to cover your valuable bicycles.
Cyclepath
Posts: 44
Joined: 20 Feb 2007, 7:31pm

Re: Insurance for CTC members

Post by Cyclepath »

Cycle Insurance - see ETA.
http://www.eta.co.uk/

Environmental Transport Association - your green breakdown and insurance provider.
They also provide cycle breakdown cover.
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