STOLEN - XS11 Special - wee hours of 25th April - Birmingham

On irony, I liked the letter in the Times today...

'There is a great irony in the comment by Rowan Williams that “there
were things government believed it knew and claimed to know on a
privileged basis which, it emerged, were anything but certain”.
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/KH500A8/TS250C
|_\_____/_| ..64299../..15196.../..3157./.19406
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4 PM#5
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11 WG*
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17
'^' RBR-Visited:13 Pts: 250 Miles:1237

 

so if you pop back to your house for ten minutes for a crap and your
ride is stolen it isn't insured?

methinks carole nash's star is waning fast.

 

It's not just Carole Nash. Every policy I've had where I've said
it'll be garaged has had a similar condition. Usually they just apply
between certain hours at night though, for example the GSXR must be in
the garage between 11pm and 6am if at home.

 

I don't see that this is an enforceable clause.

take someone using his bike during the day for several local short
trips, one or more of those include a return to the home address for a
coffee / crap / whatever

while the bike is parked outside the home it is still "in use" and
merely parked for a few minutes, it is not "out of use" and "parked
up" as it were.

now how are the insurers going to tell the difference anyway?

just about 2 years ago my z1 was trashed while parked outside my house
(not the usual as stated on the ins parking place which was in the
back) on the street, truck with broken n/s mirror reverses around
corner and over kwack, bending frame, instant write off.

yes this was an auntie carole agreed value policy, and they didn't say
dick, as it happened I had returned home because AFAICR I had
forgotten a piece of paperwork for the bank and stopped for a coffee
while I was back (was inside still wearing leathers etc) but lacking
gps tracking of the bike and x10 wireless webcam surveillance of my
sitting room, just how is any insurer going to prove or disprove this,
or even comment on it?

------------------------------------

while reporting THIS claim on the phone yesterday the bod asked me
several questions that I objected to, such as did I have any medical
conditions etc etc, I pointed out to him repeatedly that the bike was
stolen at about 2am from a driveway(of a friends house that I was
visiting some 160 miles from home) where it was securely chained up
with 70 quids worth of chain and padlock, it was not being ridden by
me nor was it on a public highway, so the ONLY aspect of my insurance
policy and cover that was invoked were those that related to THEFT
cover. My licence of lack thereof, any medical comdition I might or
might not have had, whether I was pissed out of my tiny mind or
whether I was busy playing hide the salami were all totally irellevant
to any claim under the THEFT clause.

--------------------------------------

If i have had ten bikes stolen in the past five years, I can see that
the insurance company might have some concerns and investigate further
was there any fraud, were they on HP that I could not pay, were they
all left in reigate with the keys in the ignition, etc.

If I have had ten claims in the past five years made against me by
other drivers when I have caused an accident, I can see the insurance
company having concerns and re-assesing my risk as a driver

When the FACTS are that in damn near 3 decades of motoring, which at
various times includes 2500 miles a week a long distance dispatcher
and more trans european runs than I can shake a stick at, my sum total
of blips on the insurance radar screen are

early/mid nineties
fully comp all bells and whistles agreed value HD FXE stolen
auntie carole manage to not pay out even 1p

mid 2002
fully comp all bells and whistles agreed value Z1 shaft reversed over
by a truck while parked outside my place, write off
auntie carole eventually settle in full, after several paperwork
cockups, but to this day not had the uninsured losses which amount to
some £400

late 2002
fully comp all bells and whistles agreed value guzzi sport that I
managed to drop in an icy carp park at a humiliating 10 mph, totally
and utterly my fault, buggered bikini, rocker box, gearshift and can
auntie carole eventually settle with repairer, despite several
paperwork cock ups revolving around final £300 quid of bill

april 2004 (now)
full comp all bells and whistles agreed value (or not, as they are now
claiming) xs11 special stolen from mates driveway while chained up
still ongoing obviously but CN already ducking and weaving and
claiming that it is not agreed value.

Now I dunno about you but there's quite a bit gone out in premiums
there, and they already managed to avoid a total loss payout on a
classic harley, which isn't chickenfeed money, the kawasaki they
obviously recouped the money from the trucking company insurers, so
the guzzi only was genuinely and totally my fault, this is the first
one they "lose" on, but they are still well ahead of the game, now we
are into the unknowns with the XS, and even that we aren't talking
serious money, 2k will cover it nicely, and the kwack and guzzi
incidents managed to double my premium from £100 a year to just shy of
£200 when I renewed the yam policy in end of march for the second
year, and ONCE YOU OFFER SOMEONE INSURANCE AND ACCEPT THEIR PREMIUM it
is too fucking late to to go "oh, wait a minute, we need to do our
sums again because we weren't actually planning on having to pay out
on this one..." well **** you because I wasn't planning on having my
ride stolen, and quite frankly I wouldn't have sold it for 2 grand
anyway because despite the fact that it doesn't fit the knee down
ethos of u.r.m. it did EXACTLY what I wanted out of a bike, which was
simply to eat as many miles as I chose to throw at it, without any
kind of fuss, without discomfort, and without any kind of reliability
of high ongoing maintenance costs.

over the years since i stared using auntie carole (£100 harley
insurance was an excellent deal way back then) I have lost count of
how many other bikers I have recommended who have come back to me
later and said thanks, I am now with carole nash, it must easily be a
three figure number now, but they sure have changed from a small firm
who really genuinely cared about giving (classic) bikers a good deal
to just another big insurance company who don't appear to give a ****
about anything but the bottom line... and I can get that kind of
policy absolutely anywhere, minus the carole nash commission of
course.

I guess the next few weeks will tell how this one pans out, but I am
already left with a bad taste.

It comes to something when a forty something who has ridden bikes all
his life (and by ridden bikes I don't mean just the summer all you
bastards who came out of your heated garages and waved at me fro your
fat boys) and hasn't even driven a vehicle with more than 2 wheels AT
ALL in the past several years is now seriously considering saying ****
it, get myself insured for the diesel biarriz and buy a fucked old
cx500 for 200 quid and insure it 3rd party only, for one reason and
one reason only, the insurance companies have done what the guvvmint
never could, and made biking just too much fucking hassle.

 

and after this, it didn't occur to you to try another insurance
broker?

nope.

Dumb ****.

 

hope you have the same attitude when someone who isn't insured because
they can't be bothered with the bullshit takes you out and leaves you
broken and bleeding on the hardtop.

if these fuckers are playing dirty over two grand how do you think
they are going to act when you're needing 150k because you'll never
work again because you are missing a limb?

dumb ****? yeah, that'll be you.

 

you're rather stupid.

Not using Carole Nash for insurance <> not getting insurance at all.

 

on the contrary

no shit sherlock, next you'll be telling me I can run my next bike on
shell petrol as well as bp petrol.....

since the point of my message obviously went WAAAAY over your excuse
for a brain, let me elucidate.

1/ when carole started she was small, personal, and gave a shit about
customers as individuals.

2/ carole nash the company is now large, impersonal, and gives not a
toss about customers as individuals.

you imply that one can remedy #2 by not taking my custom to carole
nash, who are after all a broker and not an insurer, and going
somewhere else instead.

which would logically leave three choices.

a/ go direct to an insurer and get treated with disdain directly by
the insurer, but saving the broker commission on the premiums at
least.

b/ go to another "gotten way too big and impersonal" broker such as
bennets, and get EXACTLY the same treatment as I do from carole nash,
MINUS the history as a paying client which at least gives me SOME
clout in an argument.. ("Look, you cannot say this has never happened
before because you did the exact same thing in 2002")

c/ go to another small, expert, caring and concientious broker (as
carole nash WAS) assuming of course that such a beast exists (and if
they do I'd be glad to hear about them because I certainly havent
found any)

choices a/ and b/ being the only choices actually open to me leave me
exactly where I am now, behind a large and faceless incompetent
beurocracy staffed by morons one step up the food chain from
telemarketers who belive that whatever is on their sacred database is
unassailable and unquestionable fact, like my 4 door rover SDi that I
could NEVER get corrected.

peace

 

Guy Fawkes says...

Bennetts are not that impersonal ime.

I insured my 250 Honda on their stand while working at the Ally Pally
bike show. 4 months later I called them to insure my Thunderace. The
bloke on the phone was the guy I dealt with at the show, and he
remembered me and what bikes I had before the T/ace (ZZR1100 and
GPZ500S)[1]. He even remembered how I paid for the Honda's insurance[2]
This was before I had given him any personal details, all I told him was
that I'd insured my CB250RS with them while I was working at the show.

[1] I'd had quotes from Bennetts that beat CN by a country mile
[2] They wouldn't take cash, so someone I was working with kindly bunged
it on their card in exchange for the cash.

 

sincere thanks for that, just shows how impressions can be misleading,
unless they give me a stupid quote bennets will be my new insurer.

thanks again