Cycle insurance policies up 75% in UK
Posted on in Business News , Cycles News
The number of people taking out cycle insurance has seen a jump of 75% over the last 5 years as a result of the "soaring popularity of cycling", according to Aviva.
In the U.K., more people are taking to two wheels which has led to a growth in the number of customers who are purchasing bicycle insurance policies.
According to the bicycle insurance figures that were produced by Aviva, there has been a growth of 75% in the purchase of policies from 2009 through 2014 throughout the U.K. This includes policies that provide insurance coverage for accidental damage as well as those for protection when injury is caused to another person. Also included were cycle policies that cover against theft of the bike, itself.
However, it wasn't London that saw the biggest increase in insurance policies, but Yorkshire and The Tyne area. Those were the starting points of the Tour de France, last year and as a result, those places saw cycle insurance policies increasing by over 100 percent.
The highest number of policies that were sold in the country were in the south and southeast. In those regions, there were 9,000 policies purchased in 2014, alone. The rise in the ownership of this kind of coverage is being credited to two different trends. The first is the increasing popularity of cycling, but the second is in the higher price that is being spent on the bicycles themselves.
The amount that people have been spending on their bikes has increased by 13% since 2013. According to Mintel, the price now being spent on the average bike is £233, whilst there is a growing trend for high end bikes with specialist retailers reporting growing demand for finely engineered bikes with price tags over £10,000.
Equally, there has been a steady growth in the rate of bicycle theft. 376,000 bikes are reported stolen every year but the British Crime Survey suggests only one in four stolen bikes are reported to police.