I suspect that many, if not most, cyclists probably have some form of insurance.

I have it via membership of Cycling UK. It's part of the package with pretty much any other similar outfit (British Cycling. LCC etc). It's commonly included as an add on to home insurance in the UK.

That said the excess might be high. My son damaged a car with his bike in his early teens. Cost of repair was less than the excess on CTC - for which we had family membership.

A hypothetical question (although this has happened to me in the past).

Occasionally while cycling, a small stone can be caught by the tyre and fly off sideways like a bullet. This is while riding normally not recklessly and with normal care and attention.

I am wondering where the liability lies if that stone hits a car and chips the paint or breaks a window ?

Obviously the car owner would not be happy about the damage but the cyclist has done nothing wrong either. Also most cyclists don't have insurance to cover costs to other vehicles.

Many years ago i was on the receiving end of this when a friend rode his bike onto my gravel drive and as described above a stone flew up and shattered my rear window. It was a company car so i just reported that the glass shattered while closing the tailgate.

It doesn't remove your liability just because you've done nothing wrong - in theory the car owner, or their insurer, could sue you but in practice they wouldn't - the car owner or insurer would pay and the car owner complain their premium's gone up when they were blameless.

A similar situation would be who is to blame to stone chip damage to a car from another passing on a newly top-dressed road, especially where the 'offender' is driving above the 'safety temporary speed limit' (normally 20mph) whilst the new surface properly binds / settles through being driven on.

I had this happen to my car twice a few years ago whereby some berk pulled in front of me too near and a stone chip cracked my front left fog lamp. Of course, I didn't know about that until I got home, by which time the other driver had gone.

The other incident was a window stone chip caused by a similar wally, but the guy sped off and I wasn't prepared to 'go after him', as I was ferrying my elderly parents at the time. The latter cost me £15 for a window repair via my insurance.

One of the problems in such matters other than what to do is that the temporary speed limit signs are often left for weeks after the work (often when the surface is ok to drive on a full speed after a week tops, especially on well-used roads), but that the low 20mph limit is rarely adhered to, especially where the normal limit is 50mph or more.

<< It doesn't remove your liability just because you've done nothing wrong - in theory the car owner, or their insurer, could sue you but in practice they wouldn't - the car owner or insurer would pay and the car owner complain their premium's gone up when they were blameless. >>

I'm not sure what genuine 'liability' there is. Any public road surface can have potential missiles awaiting an oncoming vehicle. Such an event is almost an 'act of God' in the old terminology, rather like being hit by a meteorite. An unpredictable, but perhaps foreseeable, accident covered by insurance. It's up to the insured party to decide whether to claim bearing in mind the possible increase in premium.

In the OP's case the missile was on private land, so maybe liability could be debated ?

It doesn't remove your liability just because you've done nothing wrong - in theory the car owner, or their insurer, could sue you but in practice they wouldn't - the car owner or insurer would pay and the car owner complain their premium's gone up when they were blameless.

I think this would fall under the law of tort, requiring an act of wrong-doing or negligence in order for compensation to be awarded.

I suspect this must depend on whether he had the heart attack before the collision, or as a result of the collision. If the former, the insurance company were probably right.