Insuring a Collection

[Rudyard]

Can anyone give any suggestions as to companies to speak to re: insuring a vintage star wars collection - comprising the usual mix of graded and ungraded, loose and carded figures, boxed vehicles etc. I spoke to a couple of firms who refused to give a quote.

Are there any specialist firms for this sort of thing out there in the UK? - perhaps those of you that do have stuff insured might PM me the names of the firms they know that are prepared to do this stuff.

My collection isn't worth megabucks by any stretch - but I would feel much better having some cover.

Cheers!

 

[spoons]

Mine is just covered by my household insurance, as long as no one item is worth more than £2,000 (which it isn't by a very long way) its all supposedly covered

Ed's probably the best placed to comment on this

 

[edd_jedi]

As you probably know I had to go through this not so long ago

The truth is you won't be able to get "specialist" insurance for it - your houase insurance will in almost all cases cover it. As long as you can provw you had it, what it's worth and you have adequate insurance (ie high enough cover for the contents of the whole house) then you'll be fine. Specialist insurance is generally only for individual items worth thousands of pounds (I was told 5k+)

 

[Rudyard]

Thanks guys
Being a tenant rather than a home owner, I'm looking at contents insurance which I think might be a slightly different kettle of fish to home insurance. Anyhow, I just spoke to a firm who were more positive about it, so hopefully I should be able to get things sorted.
Cheers
PS - yes Edd, your horror story is fresh in mind my mind...

 

[Darth Wensleydale]

Get your collection photographed (lots of angles, afa labels etc) and store the photos on an off-site host like webshots (you can have a private album that isn't shared with anyone else). At least then you'll have some of the evidence if your computer gets nicked as well.

 

[Rudyard]

Yeah, good ideas.

The other thing I was thinking was whether an insurer would in each case (assuming you have receipts etc) pay out the amount you bought the items for. However, if you got a bargain, or the value of a piece increased relative to what you bought it for, I wonder if they would accept evidence of things such as notices of recent ebay acutions for similar items that sold for higher than what you paid, in order to claim for 'current' value as opposed to what you originally paid for the item.

Hmmmm

 

[spoons]

Yeah, good ideas.

The other thing I was thinking was whether an insurer would in each case (assuming you have receipts etc) pay out the amount you bought the items for. However, if you got a bargain, or the value of a piece increased relative to what you bought it for, I wonder if they would accept evidence of things such as notices of recent ebay acutions for similar items that sold for higher than what you paid, in order to claim for 'current' value as opposed to what you originally paid for the item.

Hmmmm

i think ed only got back what he paid, not what they were worth. It isn't good but its better than nothing

 

[Rudyard]

Aye, it is

 

[Darth Wensleydale]

I suppose the one thing about AFA graded items is that a dealer (Brian Semling, perhaps Tom Derby etc) could put a market value on them according to the subgrades. They will want a fee for doing it but I'm sure they could make it official on their company headed paper.

 

[spoons]

I suppose the one thing about AFA graded items is that a dealer (Brian Semling, perhaps Tom Derby etc) could put a market value on them according to the subgrades. They will want a fee for doing it but I'm sure they could make it official on their company headed paper.

not a bad idea

 

[theguiltyone]

Guys, this is one of those things were if you ask 5 different people, you get 5 different answers.
Obviously it all depends on what your collection consists of but dont assume anything, tally up what you put into it, document it (list and photos) and run it by your existing contents insurer.

I use Heath Lambert who are the underwriters for Halifax.



marc

 

[Rudyard]

Thanks Marc

 

[Ron]

I must try to get my collection insured

 

[edd_jedi]

Yep I only got what I paid for the ones I had reciepts for. All the rest they took my word for, which was probably because I had reciepts for over half.

 

[Darth Wensleydale]

Found this in a quick search
http://www.stampinsurance.co.uk/index.htm

 

[gustie]

so if i bought figures of any of you guys here, would the insurers accept hand written receipts from private sales? or would they stop at till receipts etc?

 

[spoons]

your paypal records would suffice

 

[edd_jedi]

Yes Paypal really is your friend in this case, failing that ebay invoices or maybe even PM's.