Valence France Warning and check what insurance you have!

ianran

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There is an organised motorcycle theft gang operating in Valence.
They are targeting BMW’s but not too fussy at taking other bikes.
How do I know? My wife and I were relieved of our bikes, her S1000xr and my Tracer 9GT from a “secure” car park.
A morning with some very nice gendarmes reporting this where they suggested that these guys are very well armed! To quote “when we have more guns than them we will raid them!”.
We also found out that whilst a broken down bike may be recovered to the uk, if they are stolen you’re on your own. Travel insurance only covered if our ferry was cancelled therefore we had to sort and pay for our own return.
 
Sorry to hear of your loss and hope you get home ok.

My breakdown cover, with LV, also includes cover for being in an accident etc.
 
A ‘theft etc’ (whatever etc is?) is not a breakdown. It is….. theft of the vehicle.

Travel insurance relates primarily to sickness, injury and illness of the person and (with the appropriate cover) loss, damage or theft of personal possessions and delays, for instance if the ferry or aeroplane is cancelled or significantly delayed. Personal possessions are rarely (if ever) extends to include motor vehicles. Motor vehicles and the theft of (or damage to) is the realm of comprehensive motor insurance.
 
A ‘theft etc’ (whatever etc is?) is not a breakdown. It is….. theft of the vehicle.

Travel insurance relates primarily to sickness, injury and illness of the person and (with the appropriate cover) loss, damage or theft of personal possessions and delays, for instance if the ferry or aeroplane is cancelled or significantly delayed. Personal possessions are rarely (if ever) extends to include motor vehicles. Motor vehicles and the theft of (or damage to) is the realm of comprehensive motor insurance.

Preaching to the converted chap, £1300 to get home focused our mind on the insurance small print in future.
The big surprise was that whilst the bike insurances wouldn't cover personal items, because they were locked in the bike, the travel insurance did!
 
A ‘theft etc’ (whatever etc is?) is not a breakdown. It is….. theft of the vehicle.

Travel insurance relates primarily to sickness, injury and illness of the person and (with the appropriate cover) loss, damage or theft of personal possessions and delays, for instance if the ferry or aeroplane is cancelled or significantly delayed. Personal possessions are rarely (if ever) extends to include motor vehicles. Motor vehicles and the theft of (or damage to) is the realm of comprehensive motor insurance.

I have looked at the three policies I have in place for trips away. Breakdown, personal travel and bike insurance. None of them cover incidental costs as a result of the theft of the bike. The latter will repatriate the bike if it is found at a later date but there is nothing about meeting onward travel costs for the rider and passenger. The wording states they will pay a maximum of the market value of the bike, less any excess (or buy a new bike if it is under 6 months old). The latter is an Ageas policy from Devitt.
 
Preaching to the converted chap, £1300 to get home focused our mind on the insurance small print in future.
The big surprise was that whilst the bike insurances wouldn't cover personal items, because they were locked in the bike, the travel insurance did!


Whilst it is not a theft, the onwards travel costs (which basically amounted to car hire, for which I was reimbursed but not for the cost of the fuel used, nor hotels) was - after I buckled the wheel on my 1100 Pan European in SE France - met in full by my comprehensive motor insurance. Similarly, the cost of recovering the bike first to a French Honda garage and then back to Honda in Chiswick, was also met by my motor insurer. I am confident that, had my bike been stolen and not had its wheel buckled, the motor insurer would have paid for a hire car, any revised ferry crossing costs and my safe arrival back in London.

Theft of personal possessions from a vehicle varies. For instance, theft (following force) of personal items from my motorhome are covered up to I think £500 under my motor policy. I’d also have cover under my Travel policy and under my home insurance policy. Theft from my Polo is, I think, limited to £100 under my motor policy. As ever, read your policies, as the policy may well be specific about the items insured, particularly under the motor policy.

Travel policies are, as you discovered, pretty wide in the levels of cover they provide. Of course most people (including me) buy them for the medical assistance and cover they provide. But, as you discovered, they can sometimes (often, even) extend to include the loss or theft of personal possessions, taken with you on holiday, up to and including theft from a motor vehicle, along with delay or cancellation cover and some third party liability cover, for example. It all depends on the cover bought and the wording.

There is now very little ‘small print’ in any personal insurances of any kind, indeed there is arguably none at all; the FCA regulator and / or consumer rights’ legislation has done away with it. The problem, if there is one, is when bods innocently (or deliberately) expect their insurer to indemnify them for all and any mishap that comes their way, irrespective of the policy they have bought. Mix into this that many bods do not understand the difference between an insurer and the broker (or online quotation engine) and / or fail to understand the differences between the policies they have bought, that the problems start.

If going away, you need:

A. Comprehensive motor insurance.

B. A decent mechanical breakdown insurance. Note: Many breakdown policies do NOT treat a crash / theft as a breakdown. They might well assist you (not least as they are set up to do it) but might well demand first that you tell them the name and details of your motor insurer before they start. They might well then contact your motor insurer and liaise with them as to who is paying for what.

C. A decent travel insurance.

D. Sitting at home a decent householders’ comprehensive insurance, as these will often (not always) have an extension in them for All Risks cover for items taken outside of the house. For example, you probably won’t take your carpets on holiday with you or when you go to see your mum in Rugby but you might well take your camera or lap top, your wife her engagement or wedding rings and her Kindke. You might have to pay a modestly higher premium to avail yourself of this extension. It will all be detailed in the proposal for insurance that you will fill in. Some policies don’t even ask you to be specific about the items insured outside of the house. Some simply say it’s X percent of the contents sum insured, subject to a maximum of Y any one item. Others might as you to list the items, giving each a value and sometimes ask that you provide proof of purchase, particularly for expensive items. Similarly, after a claim, you might well be asked to provide reasonable proof that you did indeed own three Hermes silk scarves, a Rolex Daytona AND a state of the art digital camera (with eight lenses) AND the world’s most powerful MacBook….. why? Because there is a lot of fraud out there. Hard to believe, but it’s true. The insurer WILL investigate it if they believe that the claimant is lying.

Will buying A, B, C and D insure you for every calamity you face in life? No…… but they’ll do provide for most of them, often very cheaply. Suddenly the £100 “Rip-off, mate” insurance premium, looks like very good value when you are presented with a bill of just £200 or even more so when the bill goes north of £1000.
 
I just took a MAG travel policy as I was fed up of sifting through Policy Details looking for the word "Motorcycle" only to find they either did not cover them at all, or only for the rental of a moped. Several levels of cover and prices from @£12 to @15, but it looked like the only real differences were amounts paid and excesses - but may as well pay the extra £3 and have less chance of being caught short.

Breakdown cover is with ETA who get good online reviews and if you phone them you get through to a real person with a knowledge of the product, a bit worrying they are a small company, but having had so many problems with big household names in all kinds of businesses, including terrible service from the RAC when Mrs bike got a puncture in France - and them telling me we "should carry a spare wheel" and it therefore being our fault we were stuck.

I would like to know where this "secure car park" was - twn / city / hotel etc? And did the bikes have any extra security? I tend to just use an alarmed disc lock as a deterrent, armed gangs probably won't care about such things, but opportunists might.

Generally I avoid towns and cities preferring to stay in rural locations or small towns in the Alps / Pyrenees which tend to have very low or non existent crime rates. A friend of mine has been running an annual 2-week tour to Europe for about 30 years now, with between 20 and 40 bikes, not one theft in all that time.

As it happens I am staying in Saint Quentin on my way out of the UK in a few weeks - just hoping my bike is in the car park the following day now!
 
Preaching to the converted chap, £1300 to get home focused our mind on the insurance small print in future.
The big surprise was that whilst the bike insurances wouldn't cover personal items, because they were locked in the bike, the travel insurance did!

Wow, £1300! That must have been via Australia.

When I went from here to BMW Park Lane in London to collect my new bike, it cost me £29 for a flight from Bergerac to Stansted, about £30 for a train ticket and I was there with my bike gear. Total around £60.
 
Wow, £1300! That must have been via Australia.

When I went from here to BMW Park Lane in London to collect my new bike, it cost me £29 for a flight from Bergerac to Stansted, about £30 for a train ticket and I was there with my bike gear. Total around £60.

Nope, we decided to make it part of the holiday to try and salvage it!
We had 4 pannier bags helmets and god knows what else (wife is an Amputee) so not easy to carry let alone get on a plane with.
Ended up going over to Limoges courtesy of an incredibly kind woman Caroline from from WIMA who drove 4 hours to get us.
She lent us her bike Boo (Tiger 800, you work it out ;-)) which had a mere 94000 on the clock having been ridden by her round the world.
Caz lent us a bag to put the pannier liners in but it would still have been dearer for our luggage to get home than us.
We decided to take the train home. 1st train from Limoges to Paris stopped for an extra hour so we had to rebook our Eurostar.
Guess what, train to Darlington was delayed and we had to get from there to where we live.


Because we were booking one way we got the extra special premium price.
 
Sorry to hear that OP and thanks for the heads up.

We are currently on tour in France in a group of 6 with a couple new BMW, I can imagine the consternation a theft would cause.
 
Sorry to hear that OP and thanks for the heads up.

We are currently on tour in France in a group of 6 with a couple new BMW, I can imagine the consternation a theft would cause.

Would not worry if I were you. Bike theft is something that I don't worry about anymore and don't have any alarms or locks on either of our new bikes. I moved to France in 2004! If I were to visit the UK then I would buy chains and disk locks etc.
 
Well as a follow up , I got a phone call and email from the Chief of Police in Valence.
One of the scum who stole our bikes is in court today 17th of October.
Hopefully at least one will pay a price, sadly the bikes are long gone.
At least their Police bother to track down these low life scum.
 


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