How does bike insurance work?

October 1, 2021 9:17 AM

My renter's insurance (State Farm, in the US) covers potential theft of my bicycle. A few years ago, I bought a complete bike from a shop and kept the receipt as proof of its value. Now, I bought a separate frame with the intention of swapping parts from Bike A to Frame B. How do I document my "new" bike's worth? I have receipts for both Bike A and Frame B.
posted by btfreek to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

I had two bikes stolen from me and took the remaining quirky bike I had into a local bike shop and asked them to do an estimate for insurance purposes. They looked it over and made an item by item estimate. I was friends with people at the bike shop, it was a laid back kind of bike shop and it was a slow time of year.

I suggest you call a local bike shop, explain your situation and ask if they can do this.

The other thing you might want to do is call your insurance rep and ask them.
posted by bdc34 at 9:53 AM on October 1, 2021

When I last documented the worth of a bicycle for insurance, it was for one I had built up from old parts that had been destroyed by a driver. The insurance company accepted my enumerated list of part costs with pointers to current Craigslist comparables.
posted by migurski at 10:04 AM on October 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

My husband has gone through this multiple times (sigh) and migurski is exactly right. Keep a list of the parts and their values.
posted by bluloo at 9:29 AM on October 2, 2021

If you have the receipts for everything comprising the "new" bike you're set. Unless you're trying to schedule it for a particular value, you don't really need to know what it's worth right now. They'd likely end up calculating its depreciated value at the time of loss using the parts list anyway.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:47 AM on October 2, 2021

I'd say the easiest way is to get a rough replacement value quote from a bike shop, next time you take it in for a tune-up.
posted by kschang at 6:32 PM on October 2, 2021