Do I need push bike insurance if I have home contents cover?

It depends where you lock your bike up. Most home contents policies only cover a bike inside the home or a locked outbuilding, often with a low single-item limit, and either exclude theft away from home or require a bikes-away-from-home add-on. Most bike theft happens away from home. For a lower-value pedal bike this is a genuinely close call: if you only ride from a locked shed to a locked garage the contents cover may be enough, but if you lock up in the street, at a station, or at work, that is the gap a dedicated policy fills. Check your contents policy single-item limit and away-from-home wording before assuming you are covered.

What lock rating do I need for a cheap bike?

It is set by your insurer, not by a single UK standard, and for a sub-£1,000 pedal bike the required rating is often at the more lenient end. cycleGuard requires no Sold Secure rating at all for bikes up to and including £1,499 and accepts any lock specifically designed for a bike, scooter, or motorcycle. Assetsure accepts a Bronze-rated lock under £1,500. Cycleplan requires only Bronze under £500 and Silver under £1,000. Pedalsure accepts Silver up to £1,000. So Bronze or Silver is common for a cheap bike, but not universal. Confirm the rating in your own policy wording.

Does a cheap bike always mean I can use a cheap lock?

No. Two insurers in this dataset, Laka and Bikmo, require a Gold or Diamond lock at any bike value, so a low-value bike insured with either still needs a high-rated lock. The cheap-bike-means-cheap-lock pattern only holds with insurers whose requirement scales with bike value, such as cycleGuard, Assetsure, Cycleplan, and Pedalsure. Read the requirement for your specific insurer before buying a lock to match your bike price.

How much does push bike insurance cost?

We do not publish an estimated push-bike premium because a genuine figure depends on your bike value, your postcode, and how you store it. The only sourced figures we cite are ALA’s reported £37 to £62 a year for a bike insured at £1,000 and a £67.68 median premium across all insured values reported by Cyclist citing GoCompare. A lower-value pedal bike sits at the cheaper end of that range, but get a direct quote from a named insurer for a figure that applies to your bike.

Insurance · pillar Last verified: 15 Jul 2026

Push Bike Insurance UK: Do You Need a Policy, or Is Home Contents Enough?

A push bike, a standard pedal bike, is usually the lowest-value bike a household owns, and that changes the two decisions that matter. First, whether it is worth a dedicated policy at all or whether your home contents cover already does the job. Second, which lock your insurer will actually accept, because at lower values the required Sold Secure rating is often more lenient than the Gold most people assume. This page works through both, cited to each insurer’s own wording.

Note

This page is a record of published insurer requirements, not financial advice. We do not test locks. Confirm any figure against your own policy wording before relying on it, and check with the insurer directly if your circumstances differ from what is described here.

Do you need push bike insurance, or is home contents enough?

For a standard pedal bike this is a real, close call, which is exactly what makes it different from an e-bike. The deciding factor is location, not the bike being electric or not. Most home contents policies only cover a bike while it is inside the home or a locked outbuilding, often with a low single-item limit, and either exclude theft away from home or require a specific bikes-away-from-home add-on. Most bike theft happens away from home, in the street, at a station, or at work.

That gap is where the decision lives. If your bike rarely leaves a locked shed or garage, and its value fits comfortably under your contents policy single-item limit, the contents cover may genuinely be enough and a second premium adds little. If you lock up away from home most days, or the bike is worth more than the single-item cap, a dedicated cycle policy starts to matter. For a higher-value e-bike the same maths usually resolves the other way, because the value pushes it past the strictest thresholds, covered on electric bike insurance. For a standard bike the answer is not automatic, so read your own contents wording first.

The lock requirement for a standard pedal bike

There is no single UK standard: each insurer sets its own minimum Sold Secure rating and its own bike-value threshold at which that rating steps up. For a lower-value pedal bike, several insurers sit at the more lenient end of that scale, which is worth knowing before you overspend on a lock. Every rule below is that named insurer’s own published requirement, not a universal one.

cycleGuard requires no Sold Secure rating at all for bikes up to and including £1,499, and accepts any lock specifically designed for a bike, scooter, or motorcycle.
Assetsure accepts a Bronze-rated lock for bikes under £1,500.
Cycleplan requires only Bronze under £500 and Silver under £1,000.
Pedalsure accepts Silver up to £1,000, and also accepts a Thatcham-approved motorcycle lock at any value.

So for a sub-£1,000 pedal bike the required rating is often Bronze or Silver rather than Gold, depending entirely on which of these insurers covers it. That is the practical upside of a cheaper bike: the lock the insurer will accept can be cheaper too. One condition does not relax at any value, though. Away from home, whatever the rating, the bike must still be locked to an immovable object. The full per-insurer table, with the exact rating each requires at every value band, is on cross-insurer lock requirements.

Where cheap bike does not mean cheap lock

The lenient pattern above only holds for insurers whose requirement scales with bike value. Two insurers in this dataset do not scale at all. Laka and Bikmo require a Gold or Diamond lock flat, at any bike value, so even a low-value pedal bike insured with either still needs a high-rated lock. If you are buying a lock to match a cheap bike, that only works if your insurer tiers its requirement by value. Check whether yours does before assuming a Bronze or Silver lock is acceptable, because with a flat-requirement insurer it is not.

Check your own policy

The figures above are drawn from the specific insurers we verified on 12 July 2026. Your own policy schedule can differ, and insurers revise wording. Confirm the rating, the immovable-object wording, and any time limits in your own documents before relying on them for a claim.

What it costs

A premium depends on your bike value, your postcode, and how you store it, so a single headline number is misleading and we will not invent one. A lower-value pedal bike sits at the cheaper end, but we will not put a specific push-bike figure on it. The only figures we cite are the two we can source:

ALA reports a typical premium of roughly £37 to £62 a year for a bike insured at £1,000. ^{ALA, Cycle Insurance Costs} checked 12 Jul 2026
Cyclist, citing GoCompare data, reports a median bike insurance premium of £67.68 a year across all insured bike values. ^{Cyclist / GoCompare} checked 12 Jul 2026

Both are general baselines, not quotes. For a standard bike, weigh a figure like these against what a bikes-away-from-home add-on to your existing contents policy would cost, since for a lower-value bike that comparison is often the whole decision.

Frequently asked

Do I need push bike insurance if I have home contents cover?: It depends where you lock your bike up. Most home contents policies only cover a bike inside the home or a locked outbuilding, often with a low single-item limit, and either exclude theft away from home or require a bikes-away-from-home add-on. Most bike theft happens away from home. For a lower-value pedal bike this is a genuinely close call: if you only ride from a locked shed to a locked garage the contents cover may be enough, but if you lock up in the street, at a station, or at work, that is the gap a dedicated policy fills. Check your contents policy single-item limit and away-from-home wording before assuming you are covered.
What lock rating do I need for a cheap bike?: It is set by your insurer, not by a single UK standard, and for a sub-£1,000 pedal bike the required rating is often at the more lenient end. cycleGuard requires no Sold Secure rating at all for bikes up to and including £1,499 and accepts any lock specifically designed for a bike, scooter, or motorcycle. Assetsure accepts a Bronze-rated lock under £1,500. Cycleplan requires only Bronze under £500 and Silver under £1,000. Pedalsure accepts Silver up to £1,000. So Bronze or Silver is common for a cheap bike, but not universal. Confirm the rating in your own policy wording.
Does a cheap bike always mean I can use a cheap lock?: No. Two insurers in this dataset, Laka and Bikmo, require a Gold or Diamond lock at any bike value, so a low-value bike insured with either still needs a high-rated lock. The cheap-bike-means-cheap-lock pattern only holds with insurers whose requirement scales with bike value, such as cycleGuard, Assetsure, Cycleplan, and Pedalsure. Read the requirement for your specific insurer before buying a lock to match your bike price.
How much does push bike insurance cost?: We do not publish an estimated push-bike premium because a genuine figure depends on your bike value, your postcode, and how you store it. The only sourced figures we cite are ALA’s reported £37 to £62 a year for a bike insured at £1,000 and a £67.68 median premium across all insured values reported by Cyclist citing GoCompare. A lower-value pedal bike sits at the cheaper end of that range, but get a direct quote from a named insurer for a figure that applies to your bike.

Hub Cycle insurance The wider insurance hub, and the home-contents-versus-dedicated question for any bike type. The USP Cross-insurer lock requirements Every insurer’s minimum rating, by bike value, cited to their own wording. Ratings Sold Secure ratings What Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond mean for your policy.