So reading between the lines, they were left in an unlocked van, or a locked van that had a lock that wasn’t suitable for securing £15,000 of gear.
My wife has two very expensive road bikes. They are d-locked onto a fixed shelving unit in the garage as a condition of the insurance. I did this because when I insured the bikes as specific named items on the house insurance I asked them what steps I needed to take.
This doesn’t take away from the fact that this is entirely the fault of the criminals, but being morally right and the insurance company being morally wrong won’t lead to a payout if they can prove you didn’t secure your property in a manner consistent with the insurance policy. And I can guarantee with items this expensive there would have been explicit conditions of insurance.
We all know insurance companies are cunts and should act accordingly
You don’t even need to read between any lines. It’s in the article, albeit at the very bottom … The items were never insured because they weren’t disclosed and not in a secured area as described in the policy.
A spokesman from AA Insurance Services said: “When purchasing their home insurance policy, the customer did not declare personal possession of bikes in excess of £2,000.
“Our terms and conditions are clear that claims relating to possessions stolen from vehicles, items need to have been placed in a covered boot or glovebox and there be evidence of forced or violent entry.
“As this wasn’t the case, the claim has been rejected.
“We have advised the customer how to challenge the decision should they wish to do so.”
but being morally right and the insurance company being morally wrong won’t lead to a payout if they can prove you didn’t secure your property in a manner consistent with the insurance policy.
Note that the security or quality of the lock was apparently not questioned. It seems to have been mainly that the theft wasn’t violent enough to the locked door.
There’s a side mention of the bikes not being specified as high value items, but that would probably have limited the payout, not denied it entirely.
You right. Meeting the terms of contract with a mutual agreement has always been a requirement. Who knows what the terms were in their contract but ‘a van’ as the secure storage and ‘I don’t know how’ they got in isn’t good enough. You need to know what locks were on the van. When I insured my motorcycle I had to include the model of D lock, as I learned later, relying solely on the bike’s lock isn’t enough because with enough force thieves can yank the handlebars and snap the key lock off the forks. Or carry the whole thing onto a bed
Insurance varies. My insurer requires bikes be locked to an anchor (so not loose in a van!) But it doesn’t specify a nonsense lock branding symbol like “sold secure”. It sounds like their policy did cover bikes loose in a van, but had this nasty “violent” clause that they’ve used to deny liability.
Also most people who live in Clapham (and every other area) know not to leave anything in a vehicle overnight, let alone 3 bikes!
Don’t be daft. Have you seen what people leave in their cars? I’ve left bikes in a car overnight, but don’t think I would in Clapham.
The AA want you to blame the victim. I blame the thieves, including the AA taking money for a service they put weasel clauses in.
What a horribly written headline.
This story amused me a bit. I was on their side initially. I mean generally if a bike is on an approved locked roof rack, car insurance would pay out for this.
But, it’s not car insurance. It’s house insurance and they never declared the valuable bikes. So now, I’m stuck in a position I don’t want to be in. Defending an insurance company. Eugh. I feel dirty.
Insurance company used the phrase “forced violent entry” in their rejection message to the cyclist and the The Standard spun a totally misleading headline around it. Impressive.
I don’t use an adblocker on this device and the article was full of AI-gen adverts of old people exposing themselves to me :(
There are always skits and jokes about the UK police force not doing anything until it’s too late or there’s a confirmed state-defined criminal actually making themselves known. Because it’s accurate and true.
These asshole insurance dudes act exactly the same. I honestly don’t think England has a petty crime investigative team
until it’s too late
They don’t do it then either, unless you count paperwork & PR.
When did the back of a van stop counting as a trunk or covered boot? This sounds like typical insurance company bullshit. They are basically saying that they won’t cover it if you can see it though the window.
And is anyone surprised that Automobile Association Insurance Services avoided paying out for stolen bikes?
Need another Luigi
He would deny their claim to not have bullets in the chest because the bullets entered too slowly
UK at it again :/
…Is this not common knowledge/sense? Don’t leave anything valuable in your vehicle??
Fuck insurance companies but if this was a bag of £15,000 in cash instead of 3 bikes, no one would be outraged because it’s such an obviously stupid move
Nice victim-blaming there. Hope it never haunts you.
Read the contracts you sign
If it has to be specified in the contracts, the insurer clearly isn’t confident that it’s common knowledge, so why are you?
Also, wasn’t there something in the news recently about how long it would take to read all the contracts needed for basic life, and it’s weeks each year. These companies are doing “paperwork snowstorm attacks” on our lives.
Common sense would have been a better term to choose. They left $15,000 in a type of container that’s famously easy to get into.
If they don’t want to insure possessions left in vans, they should exclude them explicitly. Denying payouts by relying on a requirement that the theft is violent is sneaky and surely should be regarded as an unfair term in a consumer contract, if not some sort of con or fraud.
Yes, your vehicle IS explicitly not included in your homeowners insurance. This isn’t buried in the paperwork or some kind of gotcha.
You’ve outed yourself as having only read the clickbait headline so this argument is useless. If the thieves didn’t have to break anything to steal the bikes, they were not secured.
