Seems to be the trend of late... My renewal came through this week. After years of being insured with H&R only experiencing slight increases year on year of around a couple of quid, WHAM, it comes in with a £66 increase. My situation hasn't changed, I've only gained one SP30, no claims ever etc. It may not sound like much to some of the quotes seen on here but I paid 291 last year and now it's upto 358 for FC. Time to move on me thinks, feels like H&R are getting a bit comfortable with my loyality. Any suggestions on where I should be looking for my next quotations? One other thing, are the legal expenses really worth the extra mullah? H&R are asking £27 for it. Is there an alternative? Cheers
Alway try the compare sites, you may even find your insurance is cheaper done as a new quote as there are no prizes for loyalty any more. Legal expenses are worth it if you need them, £30 is the going rate although some quotes include it for free. My in-law needed it for his car claim as his insurers didnt want to know, but with bike crashes that can be more complex (especially when claiming for gear) and solicitors who arent getting paid in full by insurers now, means legal expense cover is often necessary.
Many Insurance Companies are now loading for all SP30s whereas they used to ignore a single one. Admiral Group will also penalise you if you have been on a Speed Awareness course, but not sure if they have any bike companies/policies. Never been convinced by Legal Cover. If it's your fault then I believe your insurer has to cover it, and if you are the injured party then companies will be falling over themselves to represent you, so basically you are paying them to earn a commission/fee from the people the put your case through. Also check you house insurance as a lot of policies have legal cover built into them, not sure how good they are though.
Slightly off cue here, but had my car insurance up for renewal last week. Its loaded £60 for having my bike stolen last year. Thought this was a little excessive a 30% hike, so started getting quotes, have full NCB protected, 2 companies decided that their protected NCB was applicable to me, but even though its for car insurance, the bike claim will count against 1 of the 2 allowable claims on the car policy before a reduction in the car NCB. Now I find this taking the p*ss, when asked if they would allow transfer of NCB from car to bike and vice versa, they stated no, and could not answer then, why a claim on a motorcycle policy can been seen as a claim on the car policy in terms of counting against the protection, I can just about take the loading on the car policy, but counting the claim against your protected car NCB is pushing it too far IMO. Also LV will now refuse to cover anyone with penalty code for using a mobile phone whilst driving.....I dont have an issue with that one, but just for information purposes.
MCE are quite reasonable but there less well known sister company bike devil have always been even cheaper for me so they are worth a try. I am with h&r so i hope i dont get a big increase. i dont bother with all the legal cover rubbish though
Went on go compare and they quoted mce at £247 then went on mce website to firm up the quote and it went up-to £253. Went back in the quote to a make change and it then came in at £279, went and undone the change and the quote stayed at £279. Phoned mce and told them about the different quotes I got so we done a re-quote and surprisingly it matched the original quote of £247 saving me £111. Theirs comes with RAC road side assistance, euro cover, helmet and leathers cover, courtesy bike and personal injury. Any good? See if it's this good next year.
read the small print before getting excited about all the free extras! rac cover up to 10 miles from the regd address. not including binnage. (worthless - get the full rac package from autonet instead for £39 instead of the £88 rac price ) eoro cover - thank fk i didnt have to use that. making a uk claim is bad enough. helmet & leathers - max £700, but they'll only pay out £300 less a £100 excess (work that out lol) and good luck trying to claim it.... i was trying for 6 months and havent had a penny of the massive £200 payout. courtesy bike / car - is actually a credit hire bike which will be a cbf600 pos at £78 a day, with a £600 excess payable up front. personal injury - good luck! if you do happen to bin - DO NOT USE THEIR APPOINTED REPAIRERS AND SOLICITORS AS THEY ARE TOTALLY INCOMPETENT. oh, and check your excess when the policy documents arrive - you may be surprised lol and make sure theyve ticked protected no claims cos they tried getting out of that one with me as well. wankers.
Legal Cover as an Add on is generally worthless. Your Insurance Co will make a decision based on what's cheapest/Easiest for them, irrespective of what's best for you! If that conflicts with what you want then they'll make up some bollox about how persuing your claim for a more favourable outcome for you is not commercially viable. You're better off saving ya Dollars and hiring a Third Party Specialist Solicitor Firm that deal with Bike claims.
Thanks for the info everyone. Can I assume vvtr you've been insured by these and didn't get a good service?
I've been very impressed with BikeSure. Renewal for the Blade and my EXC-R 530 was only £357. Much cheaper than expected. Did a bit of phoning around and Swinton offered a multibike policy for £307. Called BikeSure and they more than matched it. £299 FC with PNCB including an Enduro bike. Bargain.
I just tried Bikeinsurer and got some interesting results; cheapest was Bennetts £107, ok they have a voluntary xs of £500 but worth a call to see what the outlay is with this removed. Bikeinsurer didn't ask about mods so this may come into play yet. I used Bike Devil and they came bike with £284 so higher than MCE at £247 but the shocker was their xs at £1050 Funny how my existing insurers renewal is £358 but on Bikeinsurer they came in at £230?? though there was a higher xs by £100 and a voluntary xs too. I'll keep plugging away anyway and see where I'll get.
Just renewed my policy, have been with Swinton for 3 years, renewal came through at £399 !. Got some on line quotes with go compare/similar and the, cheapest was £138 with AXA Swinton phoned chasing me for business/renew policy, told them I had on line quote, and they reduced price down to £250 , asked them why ' I should stay with them, go away and when they can do me a better deal , phone me' 2 days later...they phoned me £138 fully comp..protected bonus etc ..all mods declared... bike now insured with AXA Result Could have told em to stick it, but too, much bother to change brokers, (getting proof of NCB etc) I think it may be better to shop around, towards end of month, as I assume they have monthly targets etc
Swinton have been very good for me for the last couple of years. They were already pretty cheap last year at £195 for FC and this year they phoned me up 2 months before the policy was due to renew and asked if I they could persuade me to stay with them by knocking a tenner off. I said that I'd more than likely stay with them but that I wanted to have a look around. They then offered me an additional £40 cashback to be paid when the policy's been active for 90 days. The cheque just showed up last week.
Declared.... Arrow replacement cans...Short levers...Tail Tidy....Replacement Screen....Micro Indicators....Fork adjusters...Tank pad....plus a few more cosmetic mods I should add, that the policy is on my R1.. Blade coming very soon
