For me personally, no, insurance doesn't make sense. I can afford to replace my bike if I crash it. I would rather not have to do so but it's the risk I am willing to take. I would rather do that than pay $140 a year every year to insure a replacement (with a deductible.) Someone with a $10,000 may have a higher need for insurance than I do.

Also, I know a guy on this forum who added his bike to his business' insurance. They covered it quite nicely when he wrecked last year. That may a be a cheaper option...also I may look into adding it to my auto or home owners policy, those surely have to be cheaper options than a stand alone bike insurance company IMO.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

I looked in to adding my bikes to my home owner's policy but State Farm said they wouldn't be covered unless something happened to my house i.e fire, earthquake, etc. I'm sure it's different for different companies though

Bike insurance is like other insurance. You trade an unknown for a known. Look at the cost of your bike. Look at your disposable income. If you had to replace your bike would it cause you economic harm or just be inconvenient. If inconvenient forget insurance. If you could not easily absorb the cost of a new bike into your normal budget, consider the insurance. Be sure to look at the combined cost of the insurance premium plus the deductible to calculate your out of pocket exposure.

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http://bigmikega.wordpress.com

Mine let me do it (I have Encompass) and it covers me out in the wild (where bikes are supposed to roam). I covered both my TT/Tri and Road bike (since they both weren't cheap) along with my race wheelset (on the Tri bike). It was less than $100 a year and I would pay the deductible...but you can't control what others do that could make you bite and destroy your bike. By others I mean cars, people (joggers), various wildlife, tamed animals (supposedly)...you get it and you can't always track those perps down if they flee (mainly cars and animals are the ones that have the best opportunities to run).

The replacement cost on both bikes to get something equivalent are high enough that paying the deductible makes sense to me. But everybody has their principles.

I use velosurance.

I didn't think I'd need it. Crashed pretty lightly in a gravel grinder and cracked my frame. I was VERY glad I had insurance!

If your frame is worth more than 1k, and you are aggressive ever, I'd get it.

It's always worth it when they pay out :) Was it a pain to file a claim or were they easy to deal with?

It was just like a car claim. Take pictures, get estimates for repair vs replace etc. Not ridiculous

I think you have to weigh the risk. Normally I would not consider bike insurance. Knock on wood but I have had few crashes.

However, I plan on doing a lot of road racing and crits this year. The odds of a crash have increased. The bike insurance from Markel/Velosurance also covers some medical which I assume would offset my medical deductible.

The quote I received would be for replacement cost for my bike, race wheels, gear and $1000 medical. The cost was around $250.

Good to know. It probably is worth it, all things considered. I had two bad crashes last year. Fortunately, the only real damage to the bike was a busted shifter and a few scratches. The bike ended up with far less damage than I did :)

No in most cases it is not.

Insurance works by taking in X dollars in insurance premiums, and paying back out Y * X in claims, where Y is some number less than 1. In general, the only times you want to buy insurance is

a) The thing is so expensive, no possible way you can deal with a loss.. i.e. a $500k house, even though its very unlikly to burn down - the burn down hit would ruin you financially.. so pay the $500 a year for insurance.
b) Things that are legally mandated, i.e. car insurance
c) Generally your health. May be covered under A (i.e. the cost to deal with cancer is huge, even if your individual odds are low), but also kind of different in that getting treatment without insurance can be a lot of work in the U.S.
d) You know you are more clumsy / more accident prone than average, and have a much higher than average chance of actually needing to make a claim. (Really I would focus on being less clumsy, but some things are hard to fix).

The only time I would say to get bike insurance is if you have some crazy insane bike (see 15k bike) that was given to you as a gift, and you have no way to replace it.


Otherwise, you just want to self insure. Take the $200 you would spend on bike insurance, the $50 you would spend on car insurance, and the $100 you would spend on pet insurance, and put it all in the bank. Use that fund to pay for things that happen. You will most likely not use all of this money, giving you some free retirement savings.

Watch out though, the insurance salesmen are out in force on this forum, and they will log into a bunch of accounts and try to post how awesome bike insurance is.

In most cases, I agree. I wouldn't have a problem replacing any of my bikes if misfortune should strike though. It might be worth it to someone with more expensive gear - the pic of that poor P5 that split in half comes to mind...ugh

Maybe but I claim if you can't afford to fix it you shouldn't ride it. Biking isn't the end all of life. Savings accounts for food in emergencies etc etc.

Agreed.

I got a quote from Velosurance to insure two bikes.
Including my 10% USAC discount they wanted $550/year.

Neither bike is particularly expensive, although I do have a set of pre-FC 404s and a PM which pushes the price up.
I'm going for self-insurance since I could buy a new frame for less than 4 years of insurance - and in 4 years I'm likely to want to buy a new frame anyway.

Put it this way, both of my race bikes together are worth less than half the value of my car. My car insurance is less than a grand a year and covers more. Bike insurance isn't priced to be worth it for me.

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http://ironvision.blogspot.com ; @drSteve1663

Naturally, this depends on the individual and their situation. For me, I think its worth paying the $435 that was quoted to cover an 8k bike I just purchased. If I had a total loss, its easier for me to pay ~1k ($435 plus $500 deductible) for a complete replacement than buying one myself. I plan to travel overseas this year for a few races and we all know how airlines like to treat bicycles. The piece of mind is worth it in this case.

$550/year? That's nutz. That's just about what I pay for insurance on my Jag

I also got a quote from Velosurance and I thought it was borderline ridiculous. My 2014 Speed Concept was about $11,000. The Velosurance quote for $10,000 replacement value was $60 per month. I'm not paying $720/year for bike insurance.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

So what would you be willing to pay per month/year to replace a $11k bike?

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

About half that quote. It's a no go when it starts approaching the cost to insure a vehicle.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Well, your bike approaches the cost of purchasing a vehicle, and quite a bit easier to turn into a total loss with a minor accident.

His pushie is less likely to break down :-)


Kidding .. love jags..

My new vehicle was $41K when I bought it two months ago and the insurance is about the same if I didn't count the collision insurance that's necessary for a financed vehicle. I'm not seeing how $41K and $10K end up with about about the same rates. I can't get my head wrapped around that concept so on principle alone it's a shitty deal. Heck, a huge portion of car insurance is the liability portion which isn't a factor with bike insurance. It's basically covering replacement value and has a $500 deductible. I don't see how $60 per month is worthwhile, especially when a good homeowner's policy covers a lot of the issues.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

My renters insurance will cover both of my bikes..

I pay $175/year for $50,000 worth of coverage on everything that's in my apartment.

I have Velosurance and as far as insurance goes, it's a solid product. My rates are also not nearly as high as those mentioned here, perhaps because I have excellent credit. Comparing your family car insurance premium to a carbon bike is not really fair for good bunch of reasons. If you crash your bike at 25 mph there's a good chance you'll total it. If you hit something head-on with a car at that speed, you might not even damage the urethane bumper cover. You also don't race your car. When I was young and foolish, I damaged my car in an autocross event and was stupid enough file a claim. Not only the claim was denied, my insurance premiums nearly tippled *and* somehow the manufacturer found out about it and voided the warranty on a car that had only a few thousand miles on it. So most definitely not apples to apples comparison here.

Your riding a $11k bike, if you crash it in 1 year you likely get a new $10k~ bike for what $720+$500 deductable correct?

So you'll have had $22k bikes and spent $12,500 on them correct?

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com