Insuring your collection

jrdolan

How do you insure your precious cards and memorabilia against theft and fire? (I mean beyond keeping them hidden or tucked into a fire safe) Is your homeowner's policy sufficient? What if you rent ... do you buy a special policy?

If you have to file a claim, how do you prove what you owned? Do you give your insurance agent updated inventories and photos? Would your PSA registry serve as acceptable proof to an insurance adjuster?

These are things I want to know BEFORE that horrible day comes, if it does.

Stone193

JR
I have been procrastinating about this for a year now - here is an ad in SCD. My homeowner's policy only covers a small amount due to theft, fire etc.



Here is a website I found on the topic and a short article that also references Cornell & Finkelmeier.
I believe that people have talked about insurance with respect to the registry in the past and I believe that will have to be answered by the insurance underwriter - I have a friend who got his auto collection insured and he had to have an independent appraiser come in and record the entire collection. Of course, again, collectibles insurance companies will most likely have the entire process laid out for a prospective client.
your friend
Mike

helionaut

I can't find the thread, but this was discussed before. Basically, the insurance companies will try to screw you (but we already know that). One guy who did try to comply as much as possible with what his company would want basically spent 12 hours videotaping his collection, explaining what each item was. He was told this was necessary for documentation of ownership and to explain to the insurance adjusters who would likely have no knowledge of the hobby. Having a set registered isn't good enough because it's not proof of ownership. The good news is that your homeowner's policy probably covers it already along with other household items like clothes, stereos, etc. If you have an apartment, you may have to get a special policy for amoutns exceeding a certain level. When I bought my house I told them I had a collection of cards and comics worth $20K (just pulled that number out of the air). They didn't hesitate in saying it was covered. Of course, they know that I'd have to prove to them later that I did in fact own all of it in case of a claim. As I have few receipts and no videotape or professional appraisals, that would be hard to do at this exact moment, which is what they're counting on.

Griffins

Here's a thread on Net 54 from last week
Insuring your collection

baseballcardsonly

I live just outside of Orlando and just before all the hurricanes, I called my insurance company to check on my homeowners policy. When I bought the policy, I told the insurance company that I owned a large collection of cards and wanted to make sure they would be covered in case of fire/theft/flood/hurricane. They said they would be considered like a "art collection" and that the value would be based on the current market price. When I called just before the hurricanes, they told me that I must have evidence that I owned the cards. I asked them what kind of evidence they would need, they said pictures or video would due. I told them that my house has thousands and thousands of cards and they would be no way to video tape or photograph each card. The insurance company rep said "why would you have all those cards?". So before I lost my head, I told her I would deal with it. I went to the store and purchase several packs of VHS-C blank tapes and went to work. I pulled out the star cards of each set I own and layed them out on top of the toploader shoe boxes and then would flip through the rest of the set. After the sets, I worked my single star cards and autographs. Well it took about 5/6 hours to due this and about 14 blank tapes. I took the tapes to my bank safety deposit box along with several copies of Beckett over the past 20 yrs to show the increase in value over that time. After all of this, the only thing I lost was the power for a few days and my palm tree. Better safe than sorry!!!!

Hope this helps!
Mark

Ebay (bbcards4me)