After moving to lovely Birmingham, my insurance on the Bandit has rocketed to over £1800, there is no way I can afford to pay the the £180 a month for it so its got to be replaced for something I can run cheaper. I must have spoken to every company advertised in MCN ... carole nash even quoted me £9000!!

The reason it has gone up is because it is no longer garaged (locked up in a garden) and the postcode so its not to do with the engine size its more to do with the value and desirablility I think.

What do people suggest I downgrade too? So far i've tought maybe a 6/7 year old bandit 400, or possibly a VFR400 that i could try and pick up cheaply.

What do you think?

Have you tried eBike, if thats no good and you dont need your bike everyday then why not keep it at your folks place for awhile till you sort somethin out

what about those bike shed things?
i dunno whatr they cost but its not 1800 quid.
will your insurer consider one?

yeah ebike said about 2k

i need it for getting to work and back on so thats not much good

Thats a good point...although I would have to ask the ladlord if i can put one up. They did say to me that even if it was garaged it'd only be able £200 cheaper though?

youch! and I thought my insurance was high (£1250 comp)
i was going to suggest ebike too cos they were a couple of grand cheaper than everywhere else for me, that's bad news you're gonna have to change bikes

Change bikes or loose the bike, I cant even insure a CG for less than 1300

confused.com is your friend



.........Sam

try wicked quotes .

Bloody hell! That's ridiculous!

i'm thinking i might sell it, get a cheaper bike and risk insuring it Third Party Only...the quotes for that are much much less...where it is its chained up in a garden to a big tree with a thacham chain with a disk lock on...if they can nab that then they are welcome to it! lol

Blimey. There are some advantages to being an old git then! I paid £160 FC this year on an 1100 Virago. Jesus. £1000+ just seems extortionate.

or try Direct Choice, was a lot cheaper than Bennetts and C Nash.. i paid £102 for the EXUP, Ruby paid less than a 100 fully comp and she's only had a full license for a year

Get an "undesirable" old cb250 or other of a size between 125 and 500 anything that doesn't look shiny or sportish but runs well, and insure it as cheap as you can TPFT or TP only?

theres a CB500 for sale here:
http://www.bikersweb.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=19885
also a gpz600

Out of interest. How much do you think the bike is worth?

I bought it for 2700 about 6 months ago so i value it at 2k

Was the £1800 price for Fully comp. If it is, there's not much point paying it. Even TPFT is not really worth it at that price.

If you could get third party at say £300, you'd save youself £1500 plus excess, which would only get back if you made a claim. You will have to be careful with the security though because you won't have the peace of mind of insurance backup.

Why insurance companies quote £9000 figures is beyond me. Feck, you could have your new bike stolen twice and write off the loss and you'd still be better off than paying out those sorts of premiums.

Same here mate. £100 FC for the XV535 (being ...ahem ... over 30 helps too, I suppose). One of the reasons is few thieves are looking for them, whereas 600 sports bikes are probably near the top of the swag list.

They did a survey in the US of 2 million bike insurance claims. I think the Virago (all sizes) had the fewest crash claims and fifth-fewest theft claims of all bikes. Bets on the B6 being way up the list on both counts?

Lawsio, I don't realistically expect you to consider a Virago after a Bandit but you should definitely be able to find a much cheaper bike to insure that'll get you to work and back. Good luck!