cycle touring insurance

When going on cycle tour, one important chore to carry out is to find suitable cycle touring insurance as conventional holiday insurance tends to have restrictions in the small print on the maximum number of days cycle touring.

The main things to look out for when choosing and reading the small print of cycle touring insurance policies are

• Does the cycle tour insurance cover cycling as the main activity, many back packing insurance only covers cycling as a supplementary activity.
• Maximum trip duration: some specify the touring time of less than 90 day.
• Does the cycle tour insurance cover the full value of bikes and equipment.
• Repatriation policy - do they only cover you but not your bike.
• Is it possible to renew the cycle tour insurance whilst abroad in mid-tour.
• If you needed to stop off back home for a brief period while does this void the cycle touring insurance.
• The level of medical cover if you accidentally get involved in a traffic accident, also you need to ensure that the level of cover is suitable for the country you are visiting. Some countries make it a condition that you have adequate health insurance when you get your travel visa.

Should you insure your bike

As with all things in life, you need to weigh up the cost / benefit of including bicycle replacement cover in your cycle touring insurance policy requirements. However, most policies have restrictions on the maximum value of the bicycle, and how you keep the bicycle when unattended. Personally, I do not bother with this requirement as I am either on the bike or it is in my hotel room or if camping, locked up and tied to my tent.

If you do go ahead with the stolen bicycle cover and your bicycle gets nicked then most cycle tour insurance requires you to get a police stolen goods report to be valid.

Other things to be aware of is always declare any health problems, sometimes it does not even increase the premiums. You definitely don't want your insurer voiding your cycle tour insurance when you are in the middle of nowhere.

Although it is tempting to insure the bicycle itself, it will be very difficult to find a policy that will cover your bike except to a limited value and under certain circumstances. We did find one or two policies like this but the cost of insurance was almost equal to that of a new bicycle! Remember that you would also have to obtain a police report, which is not always easy outside of developed countries.

Cycle touring is relatively low-risk anyway so as long as you take due care (don’t leave your bike unattended outside a supermarket, for example) and bring a good lock you should be fine.