Bike insuranceLive recovery
Bike recovery service that gets your bike back.
Traditional insurance pays you a sum of money weeks after your bike is stolen. BackPedal sends a recovery team to actually find it and bring it home. The covert tracking kit, the agents, and the backup insurance are all bundled into one subscription — annual in year 1, monthly or annual from year 2.
- 79.7%Recovery rate
- ~48hTypical recovery time
- 24/7In-house ops team
Recovery with no exclusions
Even if you forgot to lock up — we still recover your bike.
Full insurance backup included
Underwritten by Sundays Insurance, FCA regulated.
Tracking kit & professional installation
Covert GSM, GPS & BLE tracking kit — expertly installed, all part of your subscription.
Trusted by thousands of families, commuters, racers and delivery riders because we do more than just insure… we recover.
What happens when you report a theft
Call our 24/7 hotline. A dedicated ops handler takes over immediately, opens a case file, and begins tracking the bike in real time using the covert GSM, GPS, and BLE kit we installed. There's no claim form, no phone-tree, no 'we'll get back to you in 5 working days'.
We deploy a recovery agent based on where the bike is heading and what's happening to it. Most thefts in London are opportunistic and follow predictable patterns — we know the handover points, the chop shops, the parking spots. That experience plus live position data is how we recover 79% of bikes we're tracking.
We handle the police report on your behalf, document everything for your records, and return the bike to your door. If the bike's damaged in transit we coordinate the repair under the insurance side.
We've recovered 800 stolen bikes — and counting.
We've recovered 79% of all stolen bikes that we've covered with a tracker.
79%
Average recovery time
2 days
Live recovery
Streatham recoveryDB075 - 242907264
Live recovery
Stratford recoveryLucy D. VOLT22130272
Live recovery
Brighton recoveryMike Baker Street FB Recovery Trek Cargo
Live recovery
Twickenham recoveryUK175
Live recovery
London recoveryZ889496
Live recovery
Hounslow recoveryVOLT22160171
How we recover bikes
Three things in parallel from the moment you report a theft. The bike usually comes home within 48 hours.
- 1
Live tracking
Ops team monitors the bike's position in real time using the three on-bike trackers. Coverage holds across cellular dead-zones, indoor storage, and underground spaces.
- 2
Agents deployed
Recovery agents move to intercept based on the bike's current trajectory. We don't wait for the bike to 'settle' — most successful recoveries happen during the first 24 hours.
- 3
Return and handover
Bike checked for damage, police report filed if applicable, bike returned to your door. Insurance side handles any repair costs.
Why recovery beats a payout
A payout replaces the bike but does nothing about the underlying problem — the thief profits, the bike enters the second-hand market, and your premium goes up next year to price in the rising theft rate. Traditional insurance manages bike theft; it doesn't reduce it.
Recovery flips that. The thief gets nothing. You get your actual bike back, with the kit on it you've already adjusted to your fit. There's no excess on a recovery claim. And every successful recovery makes bike theft less rewarding for the people doing it.
Traditional bike
insurance vs
BackPedal
A bike is stolen every 2 minutes in the UK. Fewer than 2% of thieves are ever caught. Traditional insurers don't care — they just price it into your premium. The thief profits. You start again. Nothing changes.
BackPedal is different. We track your bike, recover it, and return it to you — so the thief gets nothing. Insurance is our backup, not our business model.
What you get
RecommendedBackPedalRecovery + Insurance
Other Bike InsuranceTypical Policy
01Recovery & Protection
Get your actual bike back
Covert GPS tracking included
24/7 recovery team deployed
Bike stolen? One call and we take over
02No exclusions on recovery
Forgot to lock up? Still covered
Left outside your house? Still covered
Stolen whilst riding? Still covered
03Insurance
If we can't recover your bike, our backup insurance by Sundays kicks in — the same kind of cover you'd get from any other bike insurer. Standard terms apply and claims are subject to approval.
Financial cover for a replacement bike
Accessory cover
Theft damage cover
Excess
£50*
Varies
* No excess on recovery claims. £200 excess for battery-only insurance claims.
Recovery service FAQs
How quickly does the recovery team respond?
Once you call our 24/7 hotline, we begin live-tracking immediately and a recovery agent is typically deployed within the hour. Most successful recoveries happen within 48 hours of the theft being reported. Real-time tracker data plus our agents' experience with London theft patterns mean we often have a fix on the bike before it reaches its first handover point.
What if you can't recover my bike?
If recovery isn't possible, our backup theft insurance (underwritten by Sundays Insurance, FCA regulated) handles a claim for replacement, accessories, and theft damage — subject to standard policy terms and a £50 excess. Recovery itself has no exclusions — even if you forgot to lock up — so most subscribers never need to claim under the insurance side at all.
Do I need to report the theft to police first?
No — please call BackPedal first. We handle the police report on your behalf as part of the recovery process, which logs BackPedal as the party acting on your behalf and streamlines all subsequent coordination with police. If you've already reported the theft yourself, it can create a parallel record that complicates the handover. Time matters in the first few hours; call our 24/7 hotline and we'll start tracking immediately.
Where does the recovery service operate?
UK-wide. We already protect thousands of ebikes for nationwide fleet partners and recover their bikes from across the country — Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, rural villages. The covert tracker reports position wherever the bike ends up, our 24/7 ops team monitors, and recovery agents go and get it back. The one thing currently regional is the consumer install network: a BackPedal mechanic visits to fit the tracker, and that mobile visit is currently available in London zones 1–4 (expanding in 2026). Fleet bikes are bulk-installed at depots, which is how fleet cover already runs nationwide.
How does recovery actually work?
The covert tracker reports position via GSM, GPS, and BLE — three technologies that cover each other's blind spots. As soon as you report a theft, our ops team monitors the live feed. Recovery agents are deployed to follow the bike's location. We coordinate the handover non-violently where possible, call in police where needed, document everything, and return the bike to your door.
Get your bike back, not a payout
Covert tracker, 24/7 recovery team, and backup insurance — bundled into one subscription. See your price in 60 seconds.