Home insurance and bike coverage

Lost Kiwi

Lost Kiwi

Well-Known Member
Going through the fun and games of home insurance at the moment. What are you guys doing for coverage on your bikes? Do you have them separately covered or are they covered under personal property without special conditions? (in which case whose your provider)

Getting told it could be as much as 10% of the value of the bike to cover it for a year! For something thats parked securely in my garage that seems absolutely ludicrous.
 
As someone who (briefly) owned a property and casualty insurance agency, and who believes in and carries high limits with insurance coverage, I self insure when it comes to bikes. I look at homeowners insurance more as catastrophe insurance than a home warranty, and as such have a high deductible to keep premiums down. Insurance doesn't seem to understand nice bikes, and the bikes that we all have here probably require being scheduled separately, and between the high premium for that and a high deductible it just never really made sense to me. I went through something similar recently with some watches, and it made WAY more sense to find a specialty policy with a carrier designed for just that, as opposed to scheduling them on my H.O. policy. I have to think something similar must exist for bikes.
 
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buggravy said:
As someone who (briefly) owned a property and casualty insurance agency, and who believes in and carries high limits with insurance coverage, I self insure when it comes to bikes. I look at homeowners insurance more as catastrophe insurance than a home warranty, and as such have a high deductible to keep premiums down. Insurance doesn't seem to understand nice bikes, and the bikes that we all have here probably require being scheduled separately, and between the high premium for that and a high deductible it just never really made sense to me. I went through something similar recently with some watches, and it made WAY more sense to find a specialty policy with a carrier designed for just that, as opposed to scheduling them on my H.O. policy. I have to think something similar must exist for bikes.
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I think I actually know someone who does offer bespoke bike insurance, maybe I need to hit him up. I looked at a couple online and they aren't unreasonable especially as they cover more than just theft of the bike.

I haven't started on the watch collection, that's a problem for another day!
 
Years ago when I was with Mercury bikes had a $500 value limit, but there was a $500 deductible. So unless it was part of a mass theft it destruction absolutely no value to the insurance. Needless to say, I cancelled that right away. Cheep ass company.

Now in with all state nd asked specifically about the bikes. They entered then in and covered with the homeowner insurance no problem. However, this post made me think...... Someone new tookover the franchise and they reduced some specified jewelry coverage by half and lowered the premium. So....time to ping them on the bike just in case. One the list of to-dos.

Although in kinda with @buggravy on this. Thinks it may be more of a self insured deal. In other words, I gotta suck it up buttercup.
 
Lost Kiwi said:
I think I actually know someone who does offer bespoke bike insurance, maybe I need to hit him up. I looked at a couple online and they aren't unreasonable especially as they cover more than just theft of the bike.

I haven't started on the watch collection, that's a problem for another day!
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Well, if you want to file this response for another day it might save you some trouble. Hodinkee. It's Hodinkee branded insurance, but underwritten by Chubb, so it's reputable. Download the app, use their template to add make, model, reference number, value you want to insure it for, and upload a single pic. Repeat for each piece. Submit and get a quote almost instantly, and if all looks good, enter payment info and you have an active policy. No appraisals, no waiting, no human contact, and if you buy and sell watches with any degree of frequency all you have to do is go into the app and delete the watch that's gone, and repeat the process above for new pieces. My annual premium came to approximately 1% of the insured value of the collection. Wax insurance is the same model, but I found it a bit more clunky, and they shop underwriters.

I feel like this model is so smart, and can be replicated for pretty much anything, like bikes.
 
After a day talking to insurance agents I'm staggered at the ambivalent nature to understanding what you are actually paying for here. Not one quote bothered to go into any great detail on what I was actually paying for. No consistent presentation of information. Just some attention grabbing headlines and a whole lot of silence. Trying to find documentation to understand what is and isn't covered and what any limits are on particular items is nigh on impossible.

I actually had one agent ask me why I wanted to see the policy documents. "Its a standard house insurance policy"..... what ever the feck thats supposed to mean. Another agent said you wouldn't believe the amount of people that just don't care, as long as they're "covered". Presumably they're covered in excrement if something ever happens and they need to rely on their insurance!

In every other country where I've had house insurance the policy documentation is sent as part of the quote and clearly spells out what happens. Here... o_O

I'm looking at https://www.spokeinsurance.com/ for the bikes, its run by a top kiwi bloke :thumbsup:. Seems a reasonable deal, maybe he'll do mates rates for a fellow flightless bird :D
 
buggravy said:
As someone who (briefly) owned a property and casualty insurance agency, and who believes in and carries high limits with insurance coverage, I self insure when it comes to bikes. I look at homeowners insurance more as catastrophe insurance than a home warranty, and as such have a high deductible to keep premiums down. Insurance doesn't seem to understand nice bikes, and the bikes that we all have here probably require being scheduled separately, and between the high premium for that and a high deductible it just never really made sense to me.
Click to expand...
I should add, a lot of people don't understand how insurance works or the implications of making claims. If you have two claims on homeowners or renters insurance in the preceding five years a lot of companies won't insure you. If you have a third claim in that time frame, you're virtually uninsurable. This becomes a big problem if you have a mortgage that requires you to have homeowners insurance.

I had a policy with State Farm that had no limit on bike value under the personal property limit. I made a claim after my truck was broken into on a road trip and a bunch of stuff was taken, and then had a bike stolen 18mos later. Each claim was around $3500. I called State Farm to ask if the second claim would affect my rates or policy and they said no. It didn't, but they dropped me when it came time to renew my policy saying I was too great a risk. I had trouble finding coverage and when I did, it cost more than twice what I paid with State Farm. Had I known this I wouldn't have made the second claim. Which as @buggravy says makes homeowner or renter insurance really only useful for catastrophic coverage. Make one claim for a bike theft and you're very close to being uninsurable if something happens to your home that you have no choice but to claim.

For me it's not worth making a claim anymore unless its something big like my garage getting broken into and I get cleaned out of all my bikes. If just one bike is taken that I've ridden for a few years I'd just take the loss and move on. It's not worth the risk and future cost of years of higher premiums. Put some money away each year for a new one and be more careful in how I store and transport my bike.
 
Lost Kiwi said:
After a day talking to insurance agents I'm staggered at the ambivalent nature to understanding what you are actually paying for here. Not one quote bothered to go into any great detail on what I was actually paying for. No consistent presentation of information. Just some attention grabbing headlines and a whole lot of silence. Trying to find documentation to understand what is and isn't covered and what any limits are on particular items is nigh on impossible.

I actually had one agent ask me why I wanted to see the policy documents. "Its a standard house insurance policy"..... what ever the feck thats supposed to mean. Another agent said you wouldn't believe the amount of people that just don't care, as long as they're "covered". Presumably they're covered in excrement if something ever happens and they need to rely on their insurance!
Click to expand...
I had the misfortune of learning the hard way you can't trust insurance agents at all, even with what you'd expect to be a reputable company like AAA. I signed up with them and got the "all good, you're covered - your documents will be in the mail" so I assumed all was good. It seemed good, til I got a letter in the mail a month later saying my policy was being cancelled soon because I hadn't submitted all the needed information. WTF? Stop in to see the agent. Oh yeah, we need to take pictures of your truck for the underwriters. Um, shouldn't you have told me that...or better yet, done that - the day I was here a month ago before telling me "all good????". Blank stare. But we took pics, and he said that's all we needed. No worries. Then I get a letter saying my policy has been cancelled. F*cker never submitted the pics. Of course AAA notifies DMV of the cancellation so my registration is also pending cancellation. I don't recall the exact sequence of dates but among the timing of notification letters I was actually driving around uninsured for a week or so. No bueno, and I let the AAA office have it. That agent is no longer there anymore. The agent who took over my account has been better and fixed up a couple shortcomings the other agent didn't explain very clearly. It's about time I go out for quotes again this year and I'm really not looking forward to it. But according to the ads every company out there will save me 50%!!!
 
evdog said:
I had the misfortune of learning the hard way you can't trust insurance agents at all, even with what you'd expect to be a reputable company like AAA. I signed up with them and got the "all good, you're covered - your documents will be in the mail" so I assumed all was good. It seemed good, til I got a letter in the mail a month later saying my policy was being cancelled soon because I hadn't submitted all the needed information. WTF? Stop in to see the agent. Oh yeah, we need to take pictures of your truck for the underwriters. Um, shouldn't you have told me that...or better yet, done that - the day I was here a month ago before telling me "all good????". Blank stare. But we took pics, and he said that's all we needed. No worries. Then I get a letter saying my policy has been cancelled. F*cker never submitted the pics. Of course AAA notifies DMV of the cancellation so my registration is also pending cancellation. I don't recall the exact sequence of dates but among the timing of notification letters I was actually driving around uninsured for a week or so. No bueno, and I let the AAA office have it. That agent is no longer there anymore. The agent who took over my account has been better and fixed up a couple shortcomings the other agent didn't explain very clearly. It's about time I go out for quotes again this year and I'm really not looking forward to it. But according to the ads every company out there will save me 50%!!!
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In my brief tenure as an agency owner I was so disgusted by the inner workings of the company itself (whose name I legally can't mention), and how ill prepared most agents were to do their jobs, to some extent myself included. I was recruited heavily based on my production in my previous job, and reluctantly bit when I needed to make a pivot in the wake of the pandemic. I had absolutely zero experience or background in property and casualty insurance, but 6 weeks later I had a couple new insurance licenses, and a month after that I had an agency that was open for business. Most of the training revolved around how to sell insurance, not how to understand the insurance policies. The latter was all but impossible anyway given that the company had a bajillion different policies, that also changed constantly. The training was all about letting people know how we were insurance experts. With this particular company about 90% of new agency owners failed or quit before the end of year 3. I have to think that all the big insurance companies operate more or less the same.
 
For my insurance (all types) I have USAA.
My dad was an Army Lt Colonel so I got in under him.
Most insurance salesman when they hear I have USAA give up on quoting premiums.
As far as bikes, I have never done anything extra. Real bikes would require an extra rider, and most of my bikes weren't worth much, until kinda recently.
Even then, what with deductibles and depreciation etc, just not worth it for extra premiums.
No watches of value in my house either.
I have some guns, none worth a lot, but in total ...?
Again, I'm mostly going self insured on these things. I figure the sum of years of premiums not paid might cover any potential future losses.
 
evdog said:
I should add, a lot of people don't understand how insurance works or the implications of making claims. If you have two claims on homeowners or renters insurance in the preceding five years a lot of companies won't insure you. If you have a third claim in that time frame, you're virtually uninsurable. This becomes a big problem if you have a mortgage that requires you to have homeowners insurance.

I had a policy with State Farm that had no limit on bike value under the personal property limit. I made a claim after my truck was broken into on a road trip and a bunch of stuff was taken, and then had a bike stolen 18mos later. Each claim was around $3500. I called State Farm to ask if the second claim would affect my rates or policy and they said no. It didn't, but they dropped me when it came time to renew my policy saying I was too great a risk. I had trouble finding coverage and when I did, it cost more than twice what I paid with State Farm. Had I known this I wouldn't have made the second claim. Which as @buggravy says makes homeowner or renter insurance really only useful for catastrophic coverage. Make one claim for a bike theft and you're very close to being uninsurable if something happens to your home that you have no choice but to claim.

For me it's not worth making a claim anymore unless its something big like my garage getting broken into and I get cleaned out of all my bikes. If just one bike is taken that I've ridden for a few years I'd just take the loss and move on. It's not worth the risk and future cost of years of higher premiums. Put some money away each year for a new one and be more careful in how I store and transport my bike.
Click to expand...

State Farm was our carrier during the Hurricane season of 2004... 3 direct strikes in 6 weeks. They attempted to charge the hurricane deductible separately for each storm- even if an adjuster hadn't made it physically to the home to inspect, which was our case. We were pretty much cut off from the outside world. For some high deductible customers that triple hit was a significant percentage of the total home value. :confused:

Emergency legislation halted the practice... But they pulled out of Florida a couple years later. Bastards.
 
I have renters insurance to cover the bikes in the van, but I will probably cancel. That was more of a knee jerk when I started the idea of the "van life" (kinda, without the glory). But then realized that my van doesn't really have the glamour to attract theft attraction, so I think it is probably a waste.

Someday I hope to own a home, don't want to screw up my insurance before then.
 
Lost Kiwi said:
Going through the fun and games of home insurance at the moment. What are you guys doing for coverage on your bikes? Do you have them separately covered or are they covered under personal property without special conditions? (in which case whose your provider)

Getting told it could be as much as 10% of the value of the bike to cover it for a year! For something thats parked securely in my garage that seems absolutely ludicrous.
Click to expand...


Like J. I have Farmers and they covered my bike that was stolen off my ape hangar rack. Just make sure you keep receipts. It will make things much easier and faster. My vehicles are with them too. I have had a couple claims over the past 40 years and it went pretty smooth.
 
Faust29 said:
State Farm was our carrier during the Hurricane season of 2004... 3 direct strikes in 6 weeks. They attempted to charge the hurricane deductible separately for each storm- even if an adjuster hadn't made it physically to the home to inspect, which was our case. We were pretty much cut off from the outside world. For some high deductible customers that triple hit was a significant percentage of the total home value. :confused:

Emergency legislation halted the practice... But they pulled out of Florida a couple years later. Bastards.
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I guess they got tired of paying out big insurance payments in Florida :)
 
Living across the street from open space, really hard to find home insurance. Worse part is I have to complete full application when they are not covering just based on address.

I added extra for my Ripmo last year when it was worth more than I paid for it and had a few road trips planned, but didn't bother when switching companies this year. I'm in the high deductible only when major need make a claim camp.
 
406 said:
Living across the street from open space, really hard to find home insurance. Worse part is I have to complete full application when they are not covering just based on address.

I added extra for my Ripmo last year when it was worth more than I paid for it and had a few road trips planned, but didn't bother when switching companies this year. I'm in the high deductible only when major need make a claim camp.
Click to expand...
Insurers are very calculating people :) They don't want to insure what people would like to insure.
 
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