renter's insurance for my records
davidwingate
748 Posts
I know this subject has been discussed several times, but I am totally am serious about getting my collection insured! Now I have done the research and found that renter's insurance is easy to get. However, I need to prove with receipts how much my collection is worth if something were to happen. I have been collecting for more than 23 years, and I certainly don't have receipts from back then. Plus, not all my records were bought if u know what I mean. Then there is the fact I may have paid $1 for a record that is now worth $400. So my question is how do I find a person/company to appraise my collection so I can then I proof it's worth? Has anyone done this before? Please let a fellow strutter know the deal!amir
Comments
I do take records as payment!
That having been said, I simply said a number to my insurer and they wrote it in. I don't have a whole lot of crazy valuable stuff at my house, but they didn't require an appraisal either.
The problem with records is that, unlike stamps or Baseball cards, there are no 'societies" with certified experts. I appraised a large collection for a divorce case a few years ago, and a judge had to certify me as competent, which helps give my subsequent appraisals legal weight. Now, does a judge really know if I'm an expert? No, but that's the way it works.
If you think your collection is worth a lot of $$$, an appraisal that would stand up in court is time-consuming and expensive. You need a figure for each individual record in case only part of the collection is stolen or damaged, and to show that the collection was really inspected. Take pictures of the appraiser with your records, and take photos of many of your most valuable records. Anyone who just gives you a blanket "I looked at ______'s record collection and it is worth $200,000" type of appraisal isn't helping you, and is also opening themselves up to fraud charges.
You may also have trouble getting coverage under standard renters insurance. Most likely you'll have to get 'collectibles' insurance.
My (business) insurer paid out a flood claim without any appraisal at all, just a round number. Granted, it wasn't close to a total loss, really just a couple boxes. But I don't think the dollar value got high enough for them to care.
amir
Also, DW, don't mistake someone who is happy to write a policy and take your payments with someone who will actually pay when tragedy strikes. Just because they will write you a policy based on an appraisal doesn't mean that they will accept that appraisal if they have to pay out.
The last I appraisal I did was for almost $300,000, and the company wrote the policy without looking at my work. If they have to pay based on that figure, they will have a team of lawyers go over every inch.
In the end I just added the estimated value of my records to the rest of my stuff and insured that as a lot. It's much cheaper. The only 'problem' now is my records are not insured against burglary, only fire and water damage. I live one flight up and I have yet to see someone dragging down 4000 records in the middle of the night so I'm not worried.
amir
http://www.collectinsure.com/
hey amir, you will need to schedule them on the policy so start by making an excel spreadsheet of everything with fields for artist title label year and misc (which could be for promo, sealed signed etc.) and have a field for the value which you have to fill in at replacement value as you deem it to be, not at market value and def not at original purchase value but replacement value. then you need to take a digital photo of each one and burn that to disc. then you need to take photos of the collection as per how it is situated and stored and notes on how it is stored out of harms way and on shelving and protected to the best of your ability etc. then you need to draft a description of how you arrived at your values i.e. using popsike and so on, just footnote your sources or if someone helps you appraise then reference them along with their credentials.
then submit that entire thing to your insurance company and have them approve that and approve the values and then get a couple of policy quotes from there. i was with the philadelphia contributionship but i have heard about 'collectinsure', and that might be a good way to go. those companies tend to give better rates on collectibles because they know that people don't generally sabotage collectibles intentionally. i feel like i'm going on and on but you have all my info you can just holler or email and i will tell you whatever else i can.
i started posting here the day i got my first check from that claim. i would advise anyone who has a homeowners policy to schedule your record collection separately on a policy because the claim payout if anything were to happen differs drastically on scheduled as opposed to unscheduled items. and same goes with a rental policy i would imagine.
That sounds more or less what they wanted me to do when I looked into insuring all my records.
Doesn't the insurance company demand that you take extra security on your house (system with alarm and special locks on the doors etc.) when your collection excedes a certain value?