SMART INSURANCE FOR EXPENSIVE THINGS

This is such a brilliant idea: insurance on demand, that you can turn on and off and only pay for the time you use. It’s particularly great if you have a few bikes that you ride in rotation. They’re probably all covered by your household insurance when they’re locked in the garage, but it becomes prohibitively expensive to maintain all-risk cover for all of them, especially considering how seldom some might be ridden.

Still, there’s always the chance of something happening on a ride, and it would suck to have your bike stolen or damaged in a crash when it’s not insured.

That’s where JaSure comes in. You can turn on insurance when you set off for a Sunday spin, and turn it off again when you get home.

Depending on the value of your bike, you’ll probably pay about R50, which comes off your credit card at the end of the month (the rate gets cheaper the more times you use the insurance). If you don’t ride a particular bike in a month and you don’t turn on the insurance, you pay nothing.

The only negative is the relatively high excess of R2 000. According to co-founder Richard Heslop, this is to prevent fraud. Claiming is dead simple, however: everything is logged and submitted via the app, including police reports, case numbers, etc. It’s amazing what you can do with a camera and the internet these days! The underwriting is done by Santam, which lends credence to the enterprise. Don’t worry – JaSure is not some fly-bynight scam product.

This kind of insurance for bikes and other high-risk portable items is de rigueur in the US and other countries; it’s great to see a South African start-up offering a similarly forward-thinking product. Give it a try – there’s no contract you have to sign, you can cancel at any time, and you won’t be billed for anything unless you use the insurance. jasure.com