Insurance for cyclists
Sadly, cycle theft is all too common in the Cambridge area. It makes sense to insure your bike, but even more sense to prevent it from being stolen in the first place. You may also want to protect yourself from claims made against you: third-party liability insurance. This page offers some advice on these subjects.
Some more general information may be of interest:
Cycle security
The headline advice is to prevent bike theft is: own and use a good quality U-lock.
Read our more comprehensive information leaflet on cycle security and printable leaflet on Keeping your bicycle safe.
Should you be unlucky enough to have your bike stolen, please read our page on what do do in case of cycle theft.
Theft insurance
The most economical way of insuring a cycle against theft is through household insurance policies. When comparing policies, consider:
- whether a bike is covered new-for-old (this is rare, but there are a few, such as CIS that do; insurance companies don't always make it easy to find out)
- especially if your bike is valuable, whether there is an upper limit on the value of the bike insured (often, this is £500)
- some companies insure all bkes in a household based on the most valuable rather than the total value of all of them, so if you have several bikes this can make the extra premium more economical
Though anyone can take out a CycleCover policy with Butterworth Insurance, members of the CTC and London Cycling Campaign can obtain a discount, though even this is usually a more expensive option than household insurance.
See also a more comprehensive newsletter article The sweeter aspect of the sorrow of parting from 1998, which though written some years ago, still contains current information.
Third-party liability insurance
Third-party liability insurance covers you should a claim be made against you in the event of damage you are alleged to have caused. Claims that you caused an accident leading to severe personal injury could, in principle, mean you are sued for hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds, so third-party liability insurance is very important to have, yet not many cyclists understand this.
Most household policies cover you automatically for some third-party claims (for example, if you guttering were to fall off onto someone's head). However whether this extends to cycle-related claims depends crucially on the policy wording. All policies exclude third-party liability when driving a motor vehicle; however they may exclude all claims related to your vehicles rather than just motor vehicles. A bicycle is a vehicle, but it is not a motor vehicle.
Joining the CTC gives you third-party liability insurance as membership benefit as well as the other benefits of joining this national campaigning organisation. London Cycling Campaign also offers this as a membership benefit.
Cambridge Cycling Campaign used to offer this as a paid-for extra for members, but sadly this became impossible to continue with, so we regret that we cannot no longer offer this.
Top of page