Insurance for your collection
1957Braves
Posts: 318 ✭✭✭
Saw an article on another forum mentioning a company that has specific sports collection insurance. I've thought about it and wanted to get some opinions. How, if at all, do you insure your collection? Is adding to your homeowner's insurance the best? Going through a specialty company? Anyone ever had to make a claim and how smoothly did it go? Any input would be very much appreciated.
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Cincinnati Insurance. Amazing company. I ditched my old Collectinsure for them.
Instagram: mattyc_collection
i use collectinsure but here is another one
https://www.minicocollectiblesdirect.com/app/#/
and another
http://www.thefia.com/html/collectibles.html
Care to share the reasoning? I am with Collectinsure so am curious as to your experience or cost assessment between the two.
I finally got around to having my insurance agent analyze and opine on the policy I was using, and they performed a very clear comparison for me on several fronts— the salient one being ease and size of cash payout in event of a claim. I also feel more comfortable with a company that has great financial resources, while not sacrificing a personal touch when interfacing with them, so it was the best of both worlds.
Instagram: mattyc_collection
you can save 15% or more on Geico.
Matt - thanks for the info. I use Collectibles Insurance and they have been great. Is Cincinnati actually in Ohio. Being an hour away would be beneficial if I ever had the need to talk to someone face to face over some lost 1988 Topps baseball rookies!
KC
TY for the answer dm23.
Anyone ever have a claim with Collect Insure? How did it go and did they hassle on payout or any issues?
I had a stack of cards stolen when the house we were renting was broken into about 5 years ago. They were raw and didn't hold a ton of value, maybe 150-200 combined, but I don't think they covered much, if any of that price range. Our renters insurance kinda hosed us all around on for what we claimed as missing. Then they wanted to drop us immediately after we filed our claim. I was ready to scream.
I would like to get my collection insured to avoid this situation if something ever happened again.
Thanks for the responses everyone. I certainly can get this info by calling the company, but how do you start? Do you need a list of each item in your collection? Do you estimate a dollar amount your collection is worth? Do they do a validation or appraisal of what you have?
So can anyone recommend an appraiser or how to go about finding a decent one?
First Cards ever collected - 1978 Topps Football.
Working on a collection of the Top Ten FB Cards of each year from 1957-1987.
For a start. I would assume as far as appraisals go if the cards are graded, PSA/BGS it would be easy to establish a value based on VCP or other value listed periodicals. Also completed sales from EBAY for the cards involved for raw or graded. Saving all receipts for amount paid for the cards involved may be of help in value establishment. In regard to unopened, if you have any, and it is BBCE purchased maybe a call to them could establish a value via their buy/sell price. Along with any receipts. If you have any real high end valued cards into the thousands, many forego the ins. and rely on a bank safe deposit box. For the peace of mind of having the card safe means more than getting a replacement value in case it is lost,stolen,or damaged in a fire/flood and losing a treasured card. A friend of mine believes in Smith and Wesson and a pitbull for his "insurance". Maybe these points can help you on your way for appraising your collection. Good luck.
Collect insure does not require an appraisal. They ask you to put on a schedule individual items over $5K. They tell you to take photographs of your collection. I have never had a claim so cannot tell you how thatboarr works.
Has anyone filed a CollectInsure claim and what was the process/outcome?
If you own a home talk to your insurance agent. I just added an umbrella policy to my home owners insurance to cover the cards for XX amount of value. I did the same for our cell phones. Much cheaper than doing it via the vendor.
My Sandberg topps basic set
My Sandberg Topps Master set
Who is your insurer fur 72? Used to try to insure my cards that way and always ran into a $10K limit on an umbrella for collectibles. Did they require an appraisal?
You want to look into what is called a "Stated Value Policy" because there is a lot of confusion and deception out there in the insurance business. I don't know for sure that these are even available for sports collectables. People have run into problems insuring classic cars when they file a claim only to find out that without a Stated Value policy, you are getting depreciated value(so you are compensated for that 66 Corvette you bought based upon it being a 50-year old car, not a highly sought after and restored classic). Collectables(outside art, vehicles, etc..) are probably the most difficult thing to get a good policy on because the markets are so volatile and insurers aren't going to get burned insuring your cards at some inflated value just because some grading service reports auction prices at that level. Most policies offered with standard insurance policies are going to have a limit around $10K or so too. Also, "specialty" companies will likely drop you immediately if you ever file a claim.
I actively collect Kirby Puckett. I have collections of Michael Jordan, Emmitt Smith, Roberto Clemente, Dwight Gooden, Tom Seaver, Errict Rhett and Evan Longoria.
I have filed a couple lost in the mail claims with them. It was pretty painless and I got the check very quickly. No experience with a large scale loss but am told that as long as you have some kind of documentation like receipts , pictures , etc you are fine. and any individual item over 5k needs to be scheduled
State Farm. No apprraisal. I work in IT for an insurance brokerage company one of our underwriters turned me on to it.
My Sandberg topps basic set
My Sandberg Topps Master set
Update- I called my insurance agent and asked him to review the options. He mentioned that some of the specialty insurance companies have high deductibles, storage requirements, and the claim payout process was often dodgy. I am not mentioning any specific company.
After he spoke with the underwriters of my home owner's policy, the have an option to insure my collection for $1 per $100 of value. I need to provide and maintain a list of items and the value I believe they have, adding and subtracting as necessary. No deductible applies. This is the best option for me and my modest collection.
After speaking with him, I would suggest those who are considering insurance to very carefully review the policy details of each option to ensure you're making a sound decision.
Thanks to everyone for their responses.
I would think homeowners policy would be about the priciest way to go. The umbrella option mentioned earlier is very interesting.
The specialty collectors tend to be much cheaper as this is what they do. I would stick with one of them. I am on the coin side so I use Hugh Wood.
Paying a 1% premium sounds very high.
I use 2 german shepherds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Panama
no they know to stay outside the card room...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Panama
I know...old thread...but I have an update.
I sent a sportscards package to someone that paid $90 for it. It seems the post office either ripped open and stole the items or accidentally ripped open and stole the items 😅.
Since it was $90...I didn't insure or require signature.
I emailed collectinsure and sent them a screenshot of the empty package received by buyer, screenshot of the amount he paid and copy of the tracking number.
Within an hour they replied and said a $90 check will be in the mail.
Easy stuff.
Huh, you didn't ship it USPS ground advantage? It comes with $100 insurance standard.....
I didn't know it came with insurance i thought only priority did. Guess I could have gone through postal...but collect insure was quicker.
If you've ever dealt with USPS for insurance before... I think you made the right choice!
collect insure is secondary to your homeowners. That ruled them out for me. I dont want to do a claim on homeowners first in case of issue
Your premium next year will likely increase now, too.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
You don't have to. You go directly through CIS for claims in the event of loss or theft, not through your homeowners insurance policy.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I'm not sure how that would be a deal breaker, as I'm not aware of another company that would provide this type of coverage at a reasonable rate. As well, unscheduled items will barely be covered by a homeowners policy, so you'd still be collecting on the CIS policy.
Lastly, I'm not certain that Collectinsure is truly secondary as the term is not used on my policy. The only allusion to this is the following term that is deep down in the policy (see pic). I think it is more if you happen of have another type of coverage specifically for your collectibles or if you had happened to schedule certain items with your homeowners policy. For example when I purchase travel insurance or use Credit card car rental insurance, it is explicit on the declarations page that it is secondary, not hidden somewhere in the T&C's. My declarations page does not mention this. It could also be in regards to when having a shipping loss, if there was a payout by the shipping company, then that would be primary.
I've had more issues with USPS purchases in last six months than the last 15+ years.
Cards ripped out of an envelope, PWE bent badly, and just things not showing up at all.
It's a no brainer to use eBay Guarantee with under $20 items and USPS Ground Advantage under $100. Anything over, I'm having it insured. I also recommend putting bright stickers that say Scan for Delivery on eBay Guarantee sales to increase the likelihood of the USPS scanning so the Guarantee & tracking kicks in.
I would also set up an account online as it's easier than ever to buy Ground Advantage...
Pretty cool they paid your $90 claim so fast - I guess if you have that type of insurance you can forego some of the suggestions above.
On the other side of the spectrum, I talked to a dealer at a show that said he doesn't ever use insurance - not even for his packages to PSA or SGC - doesn't believe in it and says it doesn't pay for itself. I'm not that confident.
Erik
I promise you 1000% that those stickers don't do anything more than writing your message in invisible ink would do.
I too wonder given petty vindictive nature of most if stickers like that might do more harm than good?
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
This side up
Fragile
Handle with care
The age old question. Are these requests or… challenges!
I feel like I've heard that before...
Well, I noticed an increase when I started using them.
Believe me, I wish I didn't have to use them at 3 cents a piece on Amazon. But they're paid for & had they scanned more of my initial sales without the stickers - never would have bought them.
At what point in the process is the USPS supposed to scan the envelopes? Every step or just certain ones?
Erik