I learnt a valuable lesson today when looking for insurance quotes online. I’ve used Gocompare.com for a few years now as they seem to give better quotes. My big decision each year is whether to declare the list of mods on the bike or not. So I generally do one set of quotes with mods and I without. This year I went with a company where I didn’t declare the mods. This was because I decided to take the advice from MCE at the NEC show by declaring the mods after I had the policy. I paid for the policy and a few days later I got an email asking me to contact customer services as a matter of urgency. I rang the insurance company to be told they wanted to check if I had any mods on the bike. They specifically asked if I had an aftermarket exhaust. So I said yes and mentioned my Leo Vince exhaust. They then asked anything else so I said “like what” and they replied “a hugger”. “Yes” I said, “but that was fitted when I purchased the bike so I assumed it was an accessory”. “OK” was the reply “anything else”? “Yes a screen and a rear seat cowl” (more accessories). “Anything else” – like what – “crash bungs” – “oh yes crash bungs”. Basically they were working through the list of mods I had disclosed on my second set of quotes. I had wrongfully assumed no one looked at these quotes unless you took up the policy. So in future I won’t be playing the same game again. The only upside was they were happy to accept all the mods/accessories with no increase in the policy amount.
