SERV Blood Bikers

Often better known as ‘Blood Bikers’ or ‘Blood Runners’, Service by Emergency Rider Volunteers (SERV) provides a vital service to the British public by transporting human blood, samples and other medical essentials to hospitals out of hours, 365 days a year.

The service receives no government funding and is offered free to the NHS. Costs are met by donations from members of the public, charitable grants and awards from corporate sponsorship, with all riders giving their time freely to quickly and safely deliver blood, platelets and plasma for use in transfusions, as well as other items, such as samples, X-rays and donated breast milk for premature babies.

Bennetts Commitment to SERV

Bennetts is committed to ensuring that motorcyclists volunteering their services to SERV are not penalised when it comes to arranging their bike insurance. Specifically:

• We will not charge any adjustment fees for policyholders who tell us they’ve become a volunteer mid-term.
• We do not class SERV volunteering as an occupation, so there is no need to add ‘commuting’ or ‘business use’ to be covered as a Blood Biker (however if a policyholder needs ‘commuting’ or ‘business use’ for other purposes then it must still be selected and may alter the quoted premium).
• We and our insurers will not charge any extra premium specifically for being a SERV volunteer (a simple note will be added to the policy and an email sent to the policyholder confirming the cover is not affected).

If you are an emergency rider volunteer (or are thinking of becoming one) we would ask that you do the following to ensure that your cover is unaffected:

• Always call our specialist referral team, via 03300 181 587, who will liaise with insurers and make a note on the policy.
• Always include estimated mileage as a Blood Biker within the total annual mileage declared for that year.
• Always declare any modifications to your bike, for example removable panniers, top boxes or graphics.

Please note that we can only insure a bike that is privately owned and registered by the policyholder, and used occasionally for voluntary Blood Runner work. Any bikes owned by SERV and loaned to volunteers will require a different type of policy.

We search our panel of insurers to find you our best price for the cover you need.

We also cannot guarantee acceptance in every case for all SERV volunteers, as other factors unrelated to Blood Biking may affect our ability to quote or the premium quoted (although in many cases our referral team are able to negotiate with insurers with great results).