Insurance for collectors.

Mini99

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This subject has probably been done to death in the past, but things change so would like some upto date advice and information.
Do any of you have separate collectors insurance, rather than rely on your household one?
If so who do you use, are the costs reasonable, has anyone been unlucky and had to claim, how did that go, and finally how do you prove what you have if you have to make a claim?
Thanks in advance.
 
I don't have any insurance and never will, I don't like the idea of my collection of nice things that bring me happiness being a liability in terms of sucking more money out of me over x-amount of years. Good home security, dog and weapons are what I do. 8)

I don't trust insurers either, both times in life iv'e ever had to claim for something I ended up getting either half of what the thing was worth or nothing due to ridiculous 'clauses' in the contract, and the one thing I actually did 'successfully' claim for 15 years ago only gave me half of the value, which amounted to the exact amount i'd paid out in insurance for the 12 months up till the item got nicked. I'd have been better off just saving the money aside myself to replace the loss lol.

May be a different story for collectibles though?, but personally i'll never bother.

Also I do know if you're going to make a claim it helps to keep all receipts / invoices from ebay or other sites, but private sales paid with cash with no receipts could be a tricky one, i'll leave that one to others who have experience with it.
 
I have asked this question here before myself. There are indeed specialist collectibles insurers out there who would be very happy to insure you, however when I made enquiries a couple of years ago of my own insurance company and explained what it was I was trying to insure, they really weren't concerned. This is because (for now at least; if prices keep going the way they are, this might change in the future) vintage Star Wars items do not meet their definition of 'valuables', which usually includes things like gold, silver, jewellery, fur coats, works of art, etc. As such therefore, even after explaining what I had in my collection and what it was worth, my insurers, Nationwide, said it was simply part of my household contents and didn't even require an itemised list. And when I switched insurers last year to Tesco Insurance, they said exactly the same.

Therefore, as long as the total sum you insure your contents for includes the value of your collection, you should be covered. Naturally I would strongly advise anyone wanting to make sure they're covered to contact their own insurance company to check, but unless Nationwide and Tesco are exceptional in this regard, you should hopefully be alright.

Regarding your other points, fortunately I have never had to make a claim on my contents insurance so I have no idea how either company mentioned above would act in the event of a theft, fire or other damage (you never find out how good any insurance company is until you have to make a claim, of course), however it seems prudent to maintain an accurate, up-to-date list of any items you own, together with good quality photos which clearly show their condition.

Hope that helps a bit! :)
 
subzero said:
I don't have any insurance and never will, I don't like the idea of my collection of nice things that bring me happiness being a liability in terms of sucking more money out of me over x-amount of years. Good home security, dog and weapons are what I do.
Are they original or Repro though? :lol:
 
TheJabbaWookie said:
subzero said:
I don't have any insurance and never will, I don't like the idea of my collection of nice things that bring me happiness being a liability in terms of sucking more money out of me over x-amount of years. Good home security, dog and weapons are what I do.
Are they original or Repro though? :lol:

The dog? :lol:

Yeah I have a repro axe and sword, they look genuine though so at least burglars would be scared, but if they demand I float them in water i'm screwed haha!
 
Snaketibe said:
As such therefore, even after explaining what I had in my collection and what it was worth, my insurers, Nationwide, said it was simply part of my household contents and didn't even require an itemised list. And when I switched insurers last year to Tesco Insurance, they said exactly the same.
I changed providers this year too. My previous provider LV did not require me to have separate or specified insurance, nor do my current, Admiral (which I double checked and checked again). Items of a singular value in excess of £1500 do need to be specified though so maybe your VCJ, Fett MOCs, pre-production stuff etc.

Snaketibe said:
It seems prudent to maintain an accurate, up-to-date list of any items you own, together with good quality photos which clearly show their condition.
I can't recommend this enough. It's good to help keep track of your collection and I assume will be invaluable if it ever came to a claim. I have also started taking photos of my collection as further proof. Finally there was a thread on here or TIG where this topic was covered whilst discussing the relative merits of purchasing Jared Cope's Star Wars Tracker. As well as allowing you to determine prices for the various SW items you are interested in there is a section allowing you to catalogue your collection, include details, prices and photos which could be of benefit if the worst happened. I haven't used it for this as of yet but I find the tracker feature useful and at only $30 a year or $25 with a VR pass code it's good value for money IMO.
 
Thanks for the thoughts, pretty much as I expected.
I have very good household insurance (well I hope I do!, and hope I never have to find out!) that has assured me that my collection is covered, but I have heard that general house insurance companies don't understand these sort of items, they only understand valuables as watches, jewellery and furs etc.
That's why I was asking, as I would rather be over insured and not have any wories, than to take Subzero's rather "gun ho" approach! :wink:
As for keeping a photo portfolio and list of prices paid, how do you "prove" that these were not pictures lifted off the internet, and the prices made up?
I understand that keeping a record on Star Wars tracker is good, but again, I could make anything up and all of a sudden have a collection worth very much more than I have, if you follow.
That being said, everything that I buy is photographed, and a list kept that details date bought, from who and the amount paid, so that is already covered.
I'm probably over thinking this, but I have delt with insurance company's before and they are all smiles when selling a policy, but things change very quickly when you try to make a claim.
Again many thanks for your thought.
 
Mini99 said:
As for keeping a photo portfolio and list of prices paid, how do you "prove" that these were not pictures lifted off the internet, and the prices made up?
You could always take a photo of you standing next to your collection holding a current copy of a newspaper. That should prove you've not lifted the images off the web and that the photo's as current as the paper.
 
Snaketibe said:
Mini99 said:
As for keeping a photo portfolio and list of prices paid, how do you "prove" that these were not pictures lifted off the internet, and the prices made up?
You could always take a photo of you standing next to your collection holding a current copy of a newspaper. That should prove you've not lifted the images off the web and that the photo's as current as the paper.
Good idea, but won't me being in it ruin the photo! :lol:
And/or if my wife found the pictures she may think that I got someone held to ransom!!! :lol:
 
Mini99 said:
As for keeping a photo portfolio and list of prices paid, how do you "prove" that these were not pictures lifted off the internet, and the prices made up?
I'm guessing like all things a combination of elements would help your cause here. For example the photos would exist on your camera/ computer/ iCloud and would be stamped with a time, date and location.

Prices, we'll just have to link to Carl's costings for a Loose C8 Collection!

On a serious note you should have PayPal / eBay / card receipts that can be traced.

I have to admit though that I have a smallish collection but if I had a larger more valuable collection I would definitely be looking to determine how secure my collection was and that it was 100% covered.
 
TheJabbaWookie said:
Mini99 said:
As for keeping a photo portfolio and list of prices paid, how do you "prove" that these were not pictures lifted off the internet, and the prices made up?

I have to admit though that I have a smallish collection but if I had a larger more valuable collection I would definitely be looking to determine how secure my collection was and that it was 100% covered.
Exactly, I sat there looking at my collection and it's not a large one by any means, and thought "it would take a lot of money to replace those!" So thought I would get an up-to date anaswer on what others do about insurance.
That's a good point on the iCloud date stamps, CC receipts etc. nowadays you can't do anything without leaving a digital footprint, so that will no doubt help with proving ownership.
Let's just hope that none of us ever has the miss fortune to have to find out that we aren't covered.
 
We've just invested in a decent intruder alarm too. Though I should imagine most would pass up on your vintage collection and go straight for the jewellery, computers and other tech. Doesn't much help in the case of a fire though.
 
We have an alarm as well, all you can do is try to not be vulnerable in anyway.
As I have already said, lets hope we all never have to deal with this sort of thing.
 
Hi,

I use http://www.starwarstracker.com to keep a record for all my stuff - obviously ;). Below are a couple of example screens from the desktop version to show what kind of details you can capture. If you are worried about being able to prove these actually are yours, I'm pretty generous with the image slots available, so you could always upload one with your face/hand close to it as contextual proof it's yours and not something from the Internet.

insure1.png


insure2.png


TheJabbaWookie said:
Prices, we'll just have to link to Carl's costings for a Loose C8 Collection!

If you do record your collection on the Tracker, then every weekend you will get an updated email report for the current worth based on latest market activity. Here's an example of what that can look like.

insure3.png


All this is stored on a cloud server, so if something catastrophic happens like your house burning down then there is a record of all this stuff off-site that you can draw on. Plus, it's all on your mobile device to help you remember what you have when you are about to pull the trigger on a new purchase.

Hope it helps, Jared.
 
Thanks Jared,
I have only ever used this on a mobile device, I will have a look at these features on a PC.
 
Bump !
As it is insurance renewal time in my household.
I think we will take out collectors insurance,on top, as it is surprising the value now of items.
Has anyone else got any ?
How do you find it ?
As due to an incident with my parents,we found that it is a different cash value, to a replacement equivalent with vouchers- from a shop/store that the insurance companies use.
Unfortunately that would not be the option here, you would be relying on finding a replacement, or probably a settlement figure.
 
coomber75 said:
damn ive only used tracker on mobile the desktop version looks awesome

Well worth installing on a PC/Mac if you are able. Both versions mobile/desktop have their strengths.
 
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