Insurance for the mature rider

[banjo]

I've recently insured a couple of bikes and found that some companys won't quote for me. Had a bmw 1200 with swinton sold that and tried to insure a 790 which they wouldn't quote for but couldn't tell me why.Found a company to insure the 790 then a month later they wouldn't quote for a 650 single So I went in to a broker and they wouldn't me either. None of their companies will insure anyone over 69 never had trouble before so I don't know if it's a new thing or I just tried the wrong brokers

[Jug]

Have you tried a comparison site?

I halved the renewal price offered to my Mum (81) on her car just by using 'compare the market', she was staggered how much cheaper it was.

[Agedbiker]

Hey banjo, you are but a mere Spring Chicken at 69!! I'm 82 (no brag intended!) and still riding my BMW F800gt around the place and across EU.
I must agree with you about some of the Insurance companies upping prices for older bikers but it is the same for most road users of late due to
excessive charges of repair shops and spares ??
Wait until you get to 80, nearly all biker insurance companies have 80 as a cut-off point and refuse to insure anybody over that age, I tried to insure
a new bike that I had intended to purchase from a company in Wigan, the deal was almost done but when I told them my age for their insurers for a
test drive they flatly refused to let me anywhere near the bike not even in their car park, I even had 3rd party from my own insurance to cover it !!!
I was told that was the company policy so I didn't purchase the bike, I could have got one from my local dealer here (or across the water in Plymouth)
but Wigan was doing a wicked deal. In the last two years my insurance has gone up from aprox £200 to now (just paid) £450 and I consider myself
lucky, I am with the dear old Carole Nash company and have been all my riding life.
There are specialised companies around that you really have to LOOK for that will actually work out an individual policy for whatever you want to
ride but as I say you have to put the time in and really look about.
The reason companies won't tell you why they will not insure you is because of the little word "ageism" its SUPPOSED to be against the law, I don't
know if anybody has tried this in law but I suppose if you did insurance companies would say "of course we'll insure you" then whack a couple of
£K's onto the price. One company that did actually tell me to my face that they did not insure bikers over 80 was NFU Mutual they told me that was
the company policy ............... so there you have it but I'll just throw in the cost of my car insurance........... over the same period of time my
car insurance has gone up from £245 to £900 my insurance company tells me that "young drivers and old codgers get the boot up the bum"
until of course you get priced out completely !! I do have a very nice custom bespoke Ebike alongside my Beemer but I'm not telling anybody
the details of that !!

[Robbo87]

I'm with Jug on this. Loyalty counts for nothing in the insurance world so I too 'let my fingers do the walking' when it comes to renewal time. Comparison sites are where it's at.
I gave up on Carol Nash in 2008 when they wouldn't reinsure me after a no-fault accident wrote my 955 Sprint off. They and most of the other big names in the insurance rip off game consistently figure at the expensive end of the quote list. Tells you something doesn't it?

[ExBandit]

The other things that’s changed with insurance renewals at a whole - cars/bikes/home etc, is that you used to be able to phone the company who’d had a renewal quote from and haggle. The last couple of policies I’ve had to deal with, when I’ve contacted the firm it’s been …”computer say nooo”, telling me it’s all auto generated now, so that’s the price. Grrrr!

[bkingalan]

I moved to Mchenzie and Hodgson this year you get to speak to a real person in this country very helpful and a good price would highly recommend them

[Robbo87]

I've had a decent deal with Bikesure over the last couple of years but that doesn't mean it'll always be that way, I'll still be hitting the comparison websites when renewal time comes around.