Do Bike Vigilantes Substitute for Bike Insurance?

 

Organized bike vigilantes are emerging to recover stolen bikes. A pedagogical tool I stole from Luke (who I believe also stole it) is to explain how bicycle insurance might work, or not, in the face of adverse selection or moral hazard. Bike's are a nice example because if they are stolen, they are usually gone. Until now.

Pavlik is part of an unusual army: amateur sleuths who find stolen bikes and return them to their owners. As bike theft becomes more profitable, grassroot efforts to thwart thieves are springing up nationwide. Part wannabe detective, part vigilantes, the volunteers say recovering bikes can be strangely fun and addictive. 

Bikes becoming more expensive make them better targets for thieves but also make retrieving them more worthwhile. I suspect the coordinated vigilante effort arose because the specific insurance market did not.

Hat tip: Chris Meyer