Renewing bike insurance with ongoing claim

Associate
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18 Jan 2011
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I'm going to try and get quotes with the bike as completely stock (I feel the crash bungs / heated grips / exhaust end which declared as 'mods' are significantly pushing the price up) and see where that gets me after some arguing. At the moment, I'd be happy to get it below £1000.
You have these down as mods??? I haven't declared my crash bungs or heated grips as they don't affect performance (or anything really...). My slip on end can I was told was fine as long as it wasn't a full system. Try quotes with no mods and just ask about these things before purchasing, a lot of companies don't quote or hike their prices as soon as you tick the modded box regardless of what they are.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Mar 2006
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6,712
Yep this guy's insurance screwed me out of the hire bike by payout "without predudice " ie here's the value of your bike you can go buy a new one but we art admitting liability if you're found to be at fault well take some or all of the money back.

Was looking at getting a blackbird or maybe a sprint 1050.

Think they'll be extortinate now though.


What's a very low insurance group bike good for plugging away hundred so miles of motorway?

Sv650 is insurance group 9...
 
Caporegime
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You have these down as mods??? I haven't declared my crash bungs or heated grips as they don't affect performance (or anything really...). My slip on end can I was told was fine as long as it wasn't a full system. Try quotes with no mods and just ask about these things before purchasing, a lot of companies don't quote or hike their prices as soon as you tick the modded box regardless of what they are.


Only reason to declare them is so after a non fault you can claim for them
 
Man of Honour
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The joys of being a midget I can hide nicely behind my screen :D, there's quite a few really good looking deals popping up on sv650.org forums at the minute if that's a bike you're interested in.
I declared all my bits and bobs when I took out my policy with Bennetts made no difference to the price but means I'll get them all back should the worst happen.
 
Soldato
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I was knocked off about a month back, I was slowly filtering down the right hand side of some stationary traffic when a car turning right from a minor road on the left pulled out and into the side of me. In theory, this is fairly cut and dry

Glad that you managed to get the quote lower. But i do have to say something about how you said the accident happened. As the car was coming from your left to turn right, clearly this wasn't a dual carriageway. If it wasn't a dual carriageway, then legally you were not filtering, you were overtaking. So how come you didn't see the car pulling out ? because to be able to pull out, the cars you were overtaking must have stopped to allow the car to pull out ? To me it is fairly "cut and dry", you were at fault for overtaking a row of cars that had stopped to allow another car out to turn right. I take it the police were not involved ? Because had they been, i think you would be looking at due care and attention at least, possibly dangerous driving.
 
Soldato
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Car pulling out has to give way, which they didn't. Probably because they assumed if someone was letting them out, then it must be safe to pull out. They probably checked left for traffic coming that way but as the car letting them out would have been stopped they wouldn't have checked right. Stationary queue of traffic, people often let other cars out, again without checking their mirrors to see if it's safe.

Now, yes there will have been a gap, and any gap should raise suspicions - if someone's left a gap then it's normally for a reason. I personally don't filter past junctions, and any gap see me slow right down, rev a little to let anyone know I'm there, and check it's clear before moving forward.

But dangerous driving? Seriously... If that's the case the the driver should be done for dangerous driving, after all they pulled out either not having checked both ways, or without having enough visibility to see if the road was in fact clear. And do the driver who let them out, as they didn't check before letting the driver pull out that it was clear.

Filtering cases normally come down to 50/50 fault, as it's our responsibility to filter/overtake safely - however the fact the car drove into the side of Growse may mean it'll go more to the drivers fault, as he was already partially past the car when it pulled out. However it'll probably be 50/50.
 

4T5

4T5

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Only reason to declare them is so after a non fault you can claim for them

Also if you have a modded bike Plod can cause issues for You on the side of the street, "Have you put your Mods on your Insurance Bla Bla bla" I've got every single mod I've done on my insurance & it really makes very little difference to the premium. Most bike insurers have a section to be filled out that tells you which mods are auto allowed.
I've told them about all my mods even cutting the guards down/new lights/indicators/plate. I am 100% legal so if Plod pulls me I still ride my bike home. :p
 
Soldato
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Car pulling out has to give way, which they didn't. Probably because they assumed if someone was letting them out, then it must be safe to pull out. They probably checked left for traffic coming that way but as the car letting them out would have been stopped they wouldn't have checked right. Stationary queue of traffic, people often let other cars out, again without checking their mirrors to see if it's safe.

Now, yes there will have been a gap, and any gap should raise suspicions - if someone's left a gap then it's normally for a reason. I personally don't filter past junctions, and any gap see me slow right down, rev a little to let anyone know I'm there, and check it's clear before moving forward.

But dangerous driving? Seriously... If that's the case the the driver should be done for dangerous driving, after all they pulled out either not having checked both ways, or without having enough visibility to see if the road was in fact clear. And do the driver who let them out, as they didn't check before letting the driver pull out that it was clear.

Filtering cases normally come down to 50/50 fault, as it's our responsibility to filter/overtake safely - however the fact the car drove into the side of Growse may mean it'll go more to the drivers fault, as he was already partially past the car when it pulled out. However it'll probably be 50/50.

You are probably right, i mentioned it because a friend was knocked off in front of me in the same situation last year. He was done for due care and attention. He was informed that had he not been injured, he could well have been facing a dangerous driving charge instead. In his case he didn't see the car pulling out but i did, so had slowed down to a crawl. But it shows that we all have to keep our eyes peeled all the time, ride defensively and assume nothing.
 
Soldato
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You are probably right, i mentioned it because a friend was knocked off in front of me in the same situation last year. He was done for due care and attention. He was informed that had he not been injured, he could well have been facing a dangerous driving charge instead. In his case he didn't see the car pulling out but i did, so had slowed down to a crawl. But it shows that we all have to keep our eyes peeled all the time, ride defensively and assume nothing.

Hmm - I could understand that if it was a case of 'proper' overtaking (i.e. not a queue of slow moving/stationary traffic, more a few cars slowing to turn into a junction and a car in the line letting the car pull out) - then I agree in that it would be overtaking past a junction and not safe at all.

I get the impression from the OP's post though that this was a traffic queue and the car pulling out was let out by a kind soul in the queue. I arrived at the scene of one of these a few moments after it happened on my daily commute (where I've filtered past a good 100+ cars all in a single slow moving queue every morning in the same place for the past 15 months), and the car had been let out from a driveway, bike had been side-swiped. Cars pull out from junctions like this all the time on my commute but I've not failed to notice one yet.

Any gap in traffic and you should be thinking "why is there a gap there?" - often it's just because the white van man is too busy texting his bird to notice the traffic has moved on a little, but sometimes it's someone pulling out.
 
Soldato
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Ironing
Glad that you managed to get the quote lower. But i do have to say something about how you said the accident happened. As the car was coming from your left to turn right, clearly this wasn't a dual carriageway. If it wasn't a dual carriageway, then legally you were not filtering, you were overtaking. So how come you didn't see the car pulling out ? because to be able to pull out, the cars you were overtaking must have stopped to allow the car to pull out ? To me it is fairly "cut and dry", you were at fault for overtaking a row of cars that had stopped to allow another car out to turn right. I take it the police were not involved ? Because had they been, i think you would be looking at due care and attention at least, possibly dangerous driving.

So by that logic, it's impossible to filter on a non-dual carriageway, because it's always overtaking?

The cars hadn't stopped to let someone out, they had stopped because the traffic was very heavy. For whatever reason, the gap was quite hard to see. However, what I would have expected from the driver is to 'nose out', effectively driving as far as they safely could and then proceeding under extreme caution. I would have seen the nose of the car, stopped and they would have come out no problem. I should have seen the gap earlier, but for various reasons it was quite tricky to do.

Police were in attendance, were thinking about charging the other driver with careless driving - not sure where that's got to. Lawyers are still lawyering.
 
Soldato
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So by that logic, it's impossible to filter on a non-dual carriageway, because it's always overtaking?

It wasn't my logic lol. It was what the police and my mates solicitor told him. What the law calls filtering and what we as bikers call filtering seems to not quite coincide. And yes, if you are "filtering" past a single lane of traffic, the law says you are overtaking. If it was a Motorway, dual carriageway or any dual lane road, then it's filtering that the law recognizes.
 
Soldato
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Ironing
It wasn't my logic lol. It was what the police and my mates solicitor told him. What the law calls filtering and what we as bikers call filtering seems to not quite coincide. And yes, if you are "filtering" past a single lane of traffic, the law says you are overtaking. If it was a Motorway, dual carriageway or any dual lane road, then it's filtering that the law recognizes.

There's no statue that actually defines 'filtering', or expressly makes it legal or otherwise - the highway code simply tells other road users to be aware of motorbikes filtering through traffic.

All passing of traffic is technically 'overtaking', it's just that there's case law precedent which says that if you're on a motorcycle and overtaking at a slow speed past stationary or slow moving traffic, then you're not liable in the event that you crash into someone who does something silly. This isn't the case if you're just regularly overtaking, which is more 'at risk'.

This is why most filtering cases are quite messy, because insurance companies will argue the toss, knowing that each case is usually decided on its individual merits - so many are settled at 50:50 or end up in court. It all comes down to a court deciding whether or not the motorcyclist was behaving sensibly or if there's any negligence. I imagine in your mate's case, there was perhaps evidence to suggest that he was filtering in a way which was argued to be negligent.

In any case, it's frustratingly vague. Personally, I'd like to see better protections for filtering, even if it means dealing with insurance companies becomes faster / easier. If the law was clearer, I'd have my bike back by now :(
 
Caporegime
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It's only on aproch to a crossing with zigzags or after a no overtaking sign its classed as overtaking,anything else if its a line of queued traffic whether single or dual its filtering

If they pull out of a sideroad and you hit them in their side of the road then you probably face a dangerous driving charge

Even then its potluck whether you win the claim or not,from my experience anyway
 
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