Ebike insurance.....Not so great then

It's that time of the year for me where you pay up your hard earned cash for that rip off thing called insurance and after hearing how cheap EBike are and all the praise they've been getting I tried to get a quote from them, and it was a complete waste of time!

First, their website wouldn't recognise my address , I thought this was very strange as I've never had problems before.

Then after filling out the rest of my information the website came back with a quote which was almost twice as much as what H & R wanted . I thought it couldn't be right as everyone finds them to be the cheapest so I checked everything again, but I couldn't find anything wrong.

I then fiddled around with the type of cover needed and to my amazement I find they want less money for fully comprehensive cover instead of the TPFT cover I originally asked for.

Then the best bit, I thought there's something obviously wrong and it's probably linked with the website not recognising my address, so I tried getting a quote the old fashioned way, by calling them. Well, the phone rang and I then get a message saying that you can not get a quote by phone, just assistance for the online form. So I get through to an adviser and explain the problem, she immediately tells me that going for fully comprehensive can be cheaper than TPFT. I tell her that the website doesn't recognise my address though and also what I've been quoted by H & R and she tells me that if I wanted to go with EBike then I have to do it over the net and that's that, even though it's not sure where I live.

Not exactly what you want to hear so I gave up as if they can't even be bothered to get me a proper quote I hate to think what they're like if you ever need them.

I tried a few more companies and it seems H & R are the cheapest, but Carol Nash are offering breakdown cover as well for just a little more but less excess, and I should mention that no one wanted as much as EBike!

So what do I go for:
H & R - £518 excess £250
Carol Nash - £550 excess £200 with breakdown cover included
(EBike - £956 , and only £920 Fully Comp)

Strange, for me tpo was £500, and tpft was £447. That's with carole nash.

hmmmm, that's odd. they were significantly cheaper when i went for a quote, and my licence is somewhat scarred! guess being an old(er!) git has some benefits. £299 fully comp IIRC.

i also called them up valman, i got thru to someone really helpful so may be try again and you'll get a more friendly person on the phone. Go to FAQ's, there was a number on there (i think for their car insurance bit). I rang that one and got some sense out of a human.

good luck

[TSM]

Ive just had a similer thing with them, just did a fully comp on my bike quote and got £85pm (£0 vol excess, £175 comp excess), no real diffrence for TPFT. But the only thing is that H&R is £700 TPFT. Dont know yet will see.

One thing i did find about ebike is that i gave a discount for R&G protectors. My quote went from £85pm to £81pm, thats £48 over the year.

That was on their Pay as you go policy, 8months for a full years NCB. On their standard policy 12m it was £834.75 fully comp, not bad i think for me.

All my quotes are with me being 23 living in south london and the bike not being garraged or chained (it made no diffrence) only alarmed.

H&R wanted £2000 for a fully comp next year. So a totaly diffrent experiances than you Valman, its odd. Insurance does not make any sense.

Another think i found with ebike is that by getting a Bike Safe course done then my fully comp insurance would come even further down from £834 to £740.

This is odd.

Originally Posted by will

hmmmm, that's odd. they were significantly cheaper when i went for a quote, and my licence is somewhat scarred! guess being an old(er!) git has some benefits. £299 fully comp IIRC.

i also called them up valman, i got thru to someone really helpful so may be try again and you'll get a more friendly person on the phone. Go to FAQ's, there was a number on there (i think for their car insurance bit). I rang that one and got some sense out of a human.

good luck

I'm 23 with 1 years no claims, no points on my license, but I do live in East London so I wasn't expecting a low quote as the age and address do make a difference. These quotes are with the bike garaged as well though , and we wonder why so many people drive/ride without insurance.

Thanks for the tip on the number, I'll give it another go tomorrow.

[BillyC]

You're all making fundamental mistakes by assuming you can understand the logic behind their quote.

You can't.

For some reason they don't really want to insure you... hence the uncompetitive quote. It's the easiest way not to have you as a customer without officially refusing you.

Originally Posted by valman

I'm 23 with 1 years no claims, no points on my license, but I do live in East London so I wasn't expecting a low quote as the age and address do make a difference. These quotes are with the bike garaged as well though , and we wonder why so many people drive/ride without insurance.

From the point of view of the insurance company, none of this weighs in your favour - you're under 25, live in a high risk area where a garage might not make a difference according to their statistics.

And you wonder why so many people drive/ride without insurance? It's because they're selfish morons who prove that they are high-risk. Nothing else.

If what I was told is true then try at the begining of the month, because they get their quota for the month and then give ridiculous prices so as you dont choose them as they would go bankrupt if too many claims were put in from people, that is also why sometimes it takes ages for the Insurance companies to sort you out as they need to spread the amount of payouts. that is also why you get them trying for 50/50 fault if they have paid out their quota for the month.

or so I am told

Have you tried MotorcycleDirect? No idea about their service when claiming but they gave me the best quote by a long way.

22, Bromley, No NCB, licence < 1 year, not garaged. - £511 TPFT

Added info.

- Excess is £600 . So minor gamble that I'm not going to have an off that costs more than a grand! 2 months down, 10 to go!
- Insuring for pillion passengers doesn't cost extra so say yes.
- Don't buy online. Get the figure off the site but buy over the phone. Saved me £40 simply asking if they could do any better.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by BillyC

You're all making fundamental mistakes by assuming you can understand the logic behind their quote.

You can't.

For some reason they don't really want to insure you... hence the uncompetitive quote. It's the easiest way not to have you as a customer without officially refusing you.

From the point of view of the insurance company, none of this weighs in your favour - you're under 25, live in a high risk area where a garage might not make a difference according to their statistics.

And you wonder why so many people drive/ride without insurance? It's because they're selfish morons who prove that they are high-risk. Nothing else.

I know what you're saying, but the thing is if I wanted to go fully comprehensive then that was the best quote by a long way, every else wanted atleast £1200 for that, and I think having the bike ungaraged was only another £30 ?

Alot of car insurance companies are giving better quotes for comp than tpft atm. I have no idea why but my sister has taken advantage of it.