UKC

My commuter bike was stolen from a shed in my front garden last week. I have reported to the police and submitted a claim with my house insurance - I'd covered it as a named bike. I'm awaiting a response from the insurance company now.

Assuming that the claim is accepted, what are the usual options?

I have spotted a bike on the auction site that would be an ideal replacement. I am conscious that if I buy that, then the insurance mandate that I must get a new bike replacement then I'll have attained n+1! Is there normally the option to take the cash instead, or should I just wait to see what the insurance say?

I'm only asking because I'll bet the auction will finish before the insurance reply.

The only way to be sure is to speak to your insurance company, whatever anyone else's experience yours might have specific rules.

But when I claimed for a stolen bike on my house insurance there was no requirement to replace it. They just sent me the money.

My bike was stolen from the house. They just paid up the value of the bike. What I did with the money was up to me.

When I had bikes stolen the insurance company first messed me about with the values because they were not stock out of the shop bikes and then eventually offered me either a bike replacement or a cash payout. IIRC their selected replacement was a higher value than the cash they were offering but not a bike that I wanted so I ended up taking the cash.

In the end I had two bikes stolen and recovered enough from the insurance to buy one bike.

Thanks for the reply. I thought this might be the situation. I'll try and speak to them tomorrow to check.

It also doesn't help that I have slightly under insured it by not keeping my eye on both new bike and accessory prices.

hi mate, sorry to hear about your bike. I got 3 robbed out my shed during covid, I got offered a voucher but took a considerably less cash offer and bought a bike on ebay as the choice with the retailer they used wasn't great at the time (probably due to covid shortages) 

You need to watch the voucher thing.  They'll get a discount from whoever issues the voucher.  If you reject a voucher, they'll try and offer you less than the face value of the voucher.  Ask them to point out where in the insurance documentation it states that any cash settlement will be reduced by the discount that they receive from a voucher scheme.   Stick to your guns... 

When I had a bike stolen the insurance were pretty good, they paid out the full current retail price of the bike plus some extra for upgrades I'd made. thankfully I was able to prove this with a photo of the bike I had taken on the trip a few days before it was stolen. 

They offered to replace the bike or give me a cash payout which I think was about 10% less but with the additional items still came to more than the retail price of the original bike. 

I took the cash and put it towards a better bike.  

I would imagine they'll just send you a cheque to make up for your loss.  It's up to you what you do with it.  Can you imagine the bureaucratic overhead if they started stipulating what you could buy with their money!

Dave