Cycling mythbusting: Cyclists don't have insurance edition; Your thoughts on 1x set-ups — are they the future?; 2024 European Capital of Cycling is... Manchester!? Cue the complaints and laughter from local riders; New kit day + more on the live blog

I'm a bit cynical about any unattended communal-use stuff - in my experience people value things mostly by what they contribute towards them, and secondarily what they can get from them. So free stuff outside that few people currently have a use for? That's getting trashed, or at best not maintained.

Having said that I've seen one and it didn't look too shabby currently.

...Apart from being installed sideways obvs (phone camera...)

ktache wrote:

You know, normal people who lack tyre pressure obsession...

Normal? 😳🤔

antigee wrote:

Like many cyclists I have cover through a membership...point I make when challenged on this issue is that it costs FA and a lot less because cyclists aren't the people that injure others or despite what many drivers claim damage their cars every day

Just look at the Car crashes into building... thread in the forum and try to imagine a cyclist causing that sort of damage. You'd have to hit a building at over 200 MPH while riding a Pashley!

I have considered starting a "a cyclist did that..." thread...to feature the random acts of damage cyclists do to street furniture..

stonojnr wrote:

Fwiw on the insurance thing, haven't there been rumours that costs are starting to go up alot ? As they have across all insurance costs lately. But I believe British Cycling have been looking at ways to cut their costs of providing membership with free insurance lately, and one of the ways would be to drop the free insurance on the Ride/Commute bands, its already missing on the fan level, and offer a discounted separate rate insurance on top of the membership fee.

I would have thaught the principle reason for obtaining commute membership was for the insurance. The can try cutting it, but likely the only people continuining with commute insurance will be those that didn't realise insurance was removed, so it seems a little fraudulent.

https://laka.co/gb/club

£1.50 a month for 3rd party liability insurance.

There are lots of ways they can slice it up to give people what band of membership they want.

Just passing on a rumour I heard that the free insurance add on at current sub prices, isn't sustainable anymore.

So whilst it's still cheap compared to motor vehicle insurance the days of it's so cheap they'll just give it away might be over.

I wonder if at all linked to the rising cost of motor insurance that is currently being blamed on the high cost of repairing EV's, since I would expect a number of claims would be linked to damage of vehicles.

Out of curiousity I ran a quote on our car a couple of months back after reading this, and it was coming out over £200 more than the last renewal. That is for a 2021 petrol vehicle with two drivers both with full no claims.

Adam Sutton wrote:

I wonder if at all linked to the rising cost of motor insurance that is currently being blamed on the high cost of repairing EV's, since I would expect a number of claims would be linked to damage of vehicles.

Possibly, though I'd expect the insurance companies to figure out the extra costs and make the EV insurance more expensive as otherwise they become uncompetitive with the insurers that do figure that out. It would probably go quite badly for them as they'd be seen as a cheap EV insurer and thus end up with a greater proportion of EV claims which would then make their underwriter unhappy, whilst simultaneously losing ICE insurance customers.

Tesla launched its own car insurance as a response to sky-high EV insurance prices, but I don't think their customer service is any good.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-insurance/

It does make some sense for manufacturers to run insurance for their own vehicles as they can source the replacement parts at cost and it produces a nice feedback loop that encourages them to make their vehicles easier to repair and hopefully less likely to crash (e.g. they'd have an incentive to not ship vehicles with substandard brakes). With EVs, there's the double whammy of the vehicles having expensive repairs and their increased weight causes more crash damage.

The issue is really about another vehicle (your vehicle) damaging an EV though.

I am sure I have read that Tesla have issues with repairs as they do everything in house, so obtaining parts can be a lengthy wait. That would potentially incur long duration hire cars costs.

Adam Sutton wrote:

The issue is really about another vehicle (your vehicle) damaging an EV though.

I am sure I have read that Tesla have issues with repairs as they do everything in house, so obtaining parts can be a lengthy wait. That would potentially incur long duration hire cars costs.

I would guess that the premiums are largely based upon the vehicle being insured though I don't have any car insurance experience. But yes, if the average crash repair costs go up then insurance premiums will have to increase as well.

I would have thought that Tesla having parts produced by themselves would make it easier for them to source parts, but never understimate Musk's mismanagement skills.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I would guess that the premiums are largely based upon the vehicle being insured though I don't have any car insurance experience. But yes, if the average crash repair costs go up then insurance premiums will have to increase as well.

I would have thought that Tesla having parts produced by themselves would make it easier for them to source parts, but never understimate Musk's mismanagement skills.

For the most part it is your vehicle, its value, performance etc will affect its insurance band. Outside factors will always affect everyone though, just as the cost of insurance companies dealing with claims where the other party had no insurance has increased premiums in the past. If the cost of claims in general has increased due to the cost of repairing the vehicles then that will impact premiums as a whole.

The motor industry has merged by and large. I own an Alfa and that is now part of Stellantis who own a number of other brands. As such many components are shared, and many other components bought in and uses across all brands, so are easier to source/more numerous than something Tesla has to make in house for a model 3, where the priority will be getting them off the production line.

Adam Sutton wrote:

The motor industry has merged by and large. I own an Alfa and that is now part of Stellantis who own a number of other brands. As such many components are shared, and many other components bought in and uses across all brands, so are easier to source/more numerous than something Tesla has to make in house for a model 3, where the priority will be getting them off the production line.

That's a good point about Tesla's priority being to sell their cars rather than repairing them, but if I were trying to organise factory production, I'd use the crash/repair data to produce extra supply of the most commonly required items (e.g. door panels and WING mirrors). I guess it depends on how much it costs them to produce and store those parts versus how much of a problem is it to annoy their customers after they've already handed over their money.

If accident repair to EVs costs more on average (because structural damage that would have been economic to repair on a ICE car won't be if a battery pack is damaged, and battery packs often fill much of the base of the car), then third party insurance will go up for all vehicles as the number of EVs on the road increases, because you might hit one.
Still small compared with the worst case "lifetime medical care or compensation for death" costs that are the reason for compulsory third party motor vehicle insurance.

armb wrote:

If accident repair to EVs costs more on average (because structural damage that would have been economic to repair on a ICE car won't be if a battery pack is damaged, and battery packs often fill much of the base of the car), then third party insurance will go up for all vehicles as the number of EVs on the road increases, because you might hit one. Still small compared with the worst case "lifetime medical care or compensation for death" costs that are the reason for compulsory third party motor vehicle insurance.

I hadn't really thought about that, but yes, if the average repair cost of vehicles increases, then it's natural for car insurance premiums to increase. However, aren't car insurance premiums heavily dependant on the type of vehicle that you're insuring? Presumably, most claims involve the insured's own vehicle so that would likely have a big impact(!)

Could well be, the insurance industry is there to make a profit, the more money they pay out, for whatever reason, the more money they have to raise from other sources.

Cycle insurance you would think is an area they've not maximised their returns on yet.

It's not a very profitable business, in terms of margin. There are a lot of players in the market and very little to differentiate any insurer's product from another, so they have to compete on price (for the sectors they want to be competitive in). 

I think a lot of the rising costs may be due to the cost of the capital reserves insurers are required to hold, rather than the expected payouts. They're highly regulated, and also institutional shareholders don't like to invest in insurers who look like they might be short of funds. Rising gilt yields as we leave the near-zero interest-rate world will affect those capital reserves, and I know that many life insurers are getting a bit worried about what they can actually invest their capital in at the moment. 

In the USA my insurer, State Farm, is nominally member owned, so I get a financial statement every year. They take in far less in premiums than they pay out in claims. The balance plus their profits comes from investment income.

Accidents happen. For the sake of peace of mind given I commute by bike, and cycle a fair bit in reasonably heavy traffic I would rather know I am covered if something does happen.