[Closed] British Cycling - Commuter membership

I've got the 'Ride' level membership, and I'm struggling to see the difference, except it costs £1.80 more...

I think the devil is in the insurance detail:

Race Gold, Race Silver and Ride members benefit from individual liability insurance cover for non-competitive, social, leisure, utility cycling and commuting and also whilst participating in timed events such as sportives.

Commute members benefit from individual liability insurance cover for utility cycling and commuting, but not for participating in cycling events or any kind of formal group cycling activity, such as club rides.

You have to question what the point of the Commuter category is though, for a saving of less than two quid.

Home insurance covers personal liability while cycling anyway, which further questions the value.

Home insurance covers personal liability while cycling anyway, which further questions the value.

You're assuming that's a thing that everyone has.

Well, yeah, or I’m assuming that everyone can figure out whether or not it applies to them 🙂

Home insurance probably covers personal liability while cycling anyway

But, yeah.

Some folk may also wish to keep their claims off their house insurance as it becomes harder to find good quality insurance for your shiny things when you have many claimings on your policy. Not to mention the pain of listing them all for quote purposes.

Ive just trawled my insurance docs and I guess the following covers me in a very general way?

Your legal liability to pay damages and
claimants’ costs and expenses for:
• accidental bodily injury
• or illness; or accidental loss of or
damage to property;
happening during the Period Of Insurance in:
• the British Isles; or
• the rest of the world, for temporary visits.
and arising:
• as occupier (not as owner) of the Home
and its land; or
• in a personal capacity (not as occupier or
owner of any building or land); or
• as employment of a domestic employee.
We will not pay more than £5,000,000 for any
one incident, unless a claim is made against
You by any person You employ where the
injury or illness happens as a result of or in the
course of their employment by You (in which
case the most We will pay for any one incident
is £10,000,000).
We will also pay all Your costs and expenses
which We have already agreed to in writing.

I have LCC membership. I think there was an offer the other day where if I recommend you there's a slightly better deal for you (disclaimer, I benefit from something too, can't remember what now!)

I went through a similar discussion myself and ended up with LCC, but that was before commuter membership was available. LCC have more London based stuff, obvs!, which I found more relevant/interesting, not that I did anything with it

Have been looking into this.

BC insurance details go to great length to emphasise that they are "primary" insurers. This means they can be claimed off first, rather than after other insurers have reached their limit or refused to help.

But...the small print says you must claim on holiday insurance first. I've emailed them for clarification but for some reason they don't want to reply. Wonder why, and what else is hidden in there?

I'm a CyclingUK member for that sort of stuff plus thay campaign for things that matter to me more than British Cycling do.

Also a British Cycling 'Fan' member just for the CRC and Evans discounts but the CRC one is now pretty worthless and the Evans one may not last/not sure I'd order from them just now.

If you’re in London you really should support LCC - they do a lot of very specific campaigning and lobbying to make conditions for cycling in the city better.

Current new members offer is a set of high quality backup lights (worth £36 a set) I think.

Some folk may also wish to keep their claims off their house insurance as it becomes harder to find good quality insurance for your shiny things when you have many claimings on your policy. Not to mention the pain of listing them all for quote purposes.

Depends on the policy, some will let you claim off them individually like BC's T&C implies, others will insist on you disclosing any other insurers that you have that would cover the claim wholly or partially. So if you had home insurance, BC insurance, a separate bike insurance policy, health insurance and  accident cover / income insurance then you would potentially have to disclose all of those policies and the primary one would then work out what of the liability was attributed to each of the policies. So damage to a car you hit might be split between BC and the home insurer, healthcare costs between the health insurer and the accident cover, the bike between the house insurance and the bike insurance etc.

But…the small print says you must claim on holiday insurance first. I’ve emailed them for clarification but for some reason they don’t want to reply. Wonder why, and what else is hidden in there?

Doesn't seem an unreasonable statement? Plenty of insurance products have clauses that say "we will cover X but only if you take out separate cover for Y" e.g. travel insurance often only covers healthcare if you also have an E112 /EHIC card.

There used to be a clause saying you could not claim against another member - i.e. so two BC cycle member and one negligently brings down the other and the 'victim' can't claim against the other member. No idea if it is still a thing.