Who has separate bicycle insurance?
 

Our fleet of bikes for Mrs RSBob and myself are covered for replacement under our home owner’s insurance. I contacted our insurance agent and he said he could sell us an additional policy or rider or something in case one of our bikes is stolen off property. Think the quote was an additional $50+ a month. I didn’t bite since our bikes are never out of sight when away from home. Heck I even roll mine into the dentist’s office on the third floor.

Got supplemental? If so... do tell your reasoning. “Inquiring minds want to know”

In my view, the agent is revealing to you that your risk of loss from bike theft amounts to less than $50 per month on average. How do insurance companies make money? By pooling your premiums and investing them in the stock market. I'm not a financial advisor, but my reaction would be to put $50 per month into a mainstream investment such as an index fund, and be self insured.

Insurance makes sense under limited circumstances, such as if you would be financially devastated by loss of a bike. For most people, that's covered by, if you can't afford to lose your toy, then you can't afford your toy in the first place.

I once bought some item at Best Buy, and the cashier asked me if I wanted to buy an extended warranty for it. I told her: "I have a service that provides me with complete protection for everything that I own, through my bank." She asked me what the service was called, and I told her: "It's called my bank account." But while I was being sarcastic, there's a grain of truth to it: The money that I've saved over my lifetime by not buying unnecessary insurance would in fact pay to replace practically anything that I own. At this point I could probably even live with out house insurance.

look for your insurance policy and read what is EXCLUDED. That’s the most important part of your policy. If it’s not EXCLUDED it should be covered.

Good to know. Will re-read. Thanks

so why do they sell additional insurance for bikes besides putting more $$ in their pockets?

If your policy excludes bike theft you would have to add bike theft as an additional coverage under your schedule property. Another reason would be if your policy has limited coverage for theft and your limits doesn’t cover the replacement cost of your bike you would need to increase your policy limits.

Another example; It’s like adding additional coverage to cover your expensive jewelry bc your policy is limited.

I think Many Homeowners policies you would have to schedule properties worth over a certain amount.

Like they say there’s no cheap insurance. If you opted for the cheapest policy it will be limited to what it will cover. Where as the more expensive policies will have many additional coverages and higher limits to cover bike and jewelry.

I hope our 3 M blanket would cover them then.

I realize that the focus of this conversation is bicycle insurance not homeowners insurance but any homeowner that doesn't have homeowners insurance is crazy. Assuming that you own your place without a mortgage, if you have the misfortune to have a room and contents fire, the cost to repair will probably exceed the savings by not having insurance. If really unfortunate and have a whole house fire, the cost to have the dwelling torn down will far exceed the savings of not having insurance. If someone breaks into you home and rips all of your plumbing out and punches holes in your walls and takes all of your belongings then you are royally screwed.

A friend of mine inherited his fathers home. He let the place go briefly without insurance. It was gutted by an arson fire. He sold the land for slightly less than the cost of having the home town down.

Is that for both fire and theft? If so, you should be fine with a 3m blanketed limits.

yes and yes. Appreciate your council.

Have no fear, I'm not actually planning on going there.

If one or two bikes were stolen then I would be upset.
If all the bikes were taken then I would be really really mad.
Was the quote for an additional $50+ a month for all the specific bike you own, replacement cost?
Ofcourse they could not be replaced.
Most home owner policies would probably help replace one bike but not even a "super" bike.

Scant people will be financially devastated if their uninsured bikes were stolen.

Scant few people would NOT be financially devastated if their uninsured homes were destroyed.

This is why home insurance usually makes sense and why bike insurance usually does not.

Would that extra 50$ also cover liability in case you run someone over or other type of accident as well?

Gresp's idea might pay nice dividends for the moderately disciplined. At $50.00 per month, if you managed to keep your bike from being stolen, in three years, you would have $1800.00 towards N+1.

The way to look at homeowners insurance is based on an old rule of thumb: When betting against an adversary with deep enough pockets, everybody eventually goes bust. In the case of homeowners insurance, the trusty Interwebz suggests that it costs an average of $800/year in my state. What it means is that as a matter of fact your house is likely to receive less than $800 worth of damage in any year. But self-insurance only works if you can actually afford to cover a big loss, because if you can't, then you have to shut down. Most people in the US can't even cover the loss of a couple of paychecks. For those who could write a check to replace their house, most in that category would still experience a major lifestyle change, especially in retirement.

Likewise in betting, even if the averages are in your favor, eventually you will be killed by a big enough loss, so you can't bet as much as someone who has infinitely deep pockets. The averages are the same for both players, but the rare big events affect big and small players differently. In a betting game the big players will win over time for this reason, even if they can't stack the odds in their own favor.

Still, a bike is not a house. Heck, I could insure my bike by hoarding a spare bike. If you can't discipline yourself to save $50/mo, or don't have the money, then in either case it really means that you can't afford to have that kind of bike.

It was for the two most valuable bikes out of six.

Nope.

Usually in a homeowners insurance policy there are several policies combined into one. To get an understanding of this, consider renters insurance which can purchased for +/- $100 a year. That policy only covers personal items in a dwelling since the renter has no financial liability in doing structural repairs.

In my state and I'm sure it is in most states there is a tax on homeowner policies that are written by out of state carriers that is used to fund Firemen's Relief. This is a considerable amount of money and gets rolled into the premium.

Insurance rates are determined in part by ISO ratings based on fire suppression assets available such as distance from the local firehouse and amount of water available. So a home located next to a firehouse with a hydrant in the front yard will have a lower rate than a home 15 miles away with no hydrants. Same applies to sprinkler systems and monitored alarm systems. I would rather imagine insurance in a high crime area would also be affected.

I carry insurance on my ebike. I went separate from homeowner's because, in the event that I ever need to use it, I didn't want a homeowner's claim to possibly impact my premiums on my home.

Huh? Insurance companies are in business to put money in their pockets.

I opted for a renter's insurance policy to cover my bikes for just this reason. I don't want to add a claim to my homeowners policy if I don't have to. Between carrying my bikes inside my vehicles and on a hitch rack I was concerned about theft while away from the house. Sure, I bet my homeowners insurance will pay for the loss but the deductible is higher and they don't provide replacement value, only current value. I cheecked my policy.

For renter's insurance, my $25,000 policy is $194 yr, $500 deductible. The policy will pay for replacement value of the items lost. My car insurance went down approx $100 a year by adding the renters insurance so net cost is around $100 yr. Money well spent in my opinion.

No. No point in insurance on our old bikes.

Otto

$50/month? I wouldnt consider that unless I lived in an area with high bike theft. And if I did, I would keep my bikes in my house to help reduce the chances.
I cant imagine spending $600 a year on bike insurance for only 2 bikes, then having to shell out $ for my deductible if I needed to file a claim.

Agree. What will be used to determine value; bicycle blue book? That would probably come out to $50 per bike for replacement.

John

At that price, at the very least I would more consider perhaps the Velosurance type of products -- in addition to theft, I believe you also get damage coverage from a crash, and perhaps some medical coverage.