Insuring Your Collection Questions?

[Aluvial]

Have any of you gone about insuring your DnD/Gaming Collection?

What processes did you need to go through?

Is a list of ISBN #'s all that is needed, or are photographs and conditions also required when trying to figure the value of a collection?

Has anyone insured (or thought they had) your items?

Aluvial

 

[Yair]

I insured it only as part of my (borderline extensive) library, but I live in Israel and I did it through an agent who is a friend of the family, so I don't think that would be too useful to ya'

 

[diaglo]

photos, letters of authenticity, location and care of storage, value as noted by auction or grading, etc...

the same as any other collector. be it stamps, coins, china dolls, etc...

 

[Nifelhein]

photos, letters of authenticity, location and care of storage, value as noted by auction or grading, etc...

the same as any other collector. be it stamps, coins, china dolls, etc...

Do you have insurance on your collection diaglo? After all there are some pretty old books in it, great books, in fact.

 

[diaglo]

$10000 worth. but that is just the stuff i left back in my parents' attic.

 

[Nifelhein]

Wow... who said bank robbing makes a lot of money! Don't forget to chck them out for keeping eating beasties away from them!!!!

 

[KnowTheToe]

Just contact your insurance company. It is usually easy, but expensive to insure collectables.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Just contact your insurance company. It is usually easy, but expensive to insure collectables.

Note that the typical gamer's collection is not "collectible." This is recently purchased stuff for the most part. That falls under "contents" of the house. A typical HO policy (for a homeowner) or an apartment dwellers policy have a Contents limit. This means that if a fire destroys your stuff, the appraiser comes out and finds the value of the stuff. They pay up to the Contents limit for the actual cash value. That means what it's worth on the street. Typically there is depreciation. There is also a deductible. (If you have a very minor loss it's often not worth it to collect because premium goes up.)

Deluxe homeowner's policies pay replacement cost. This is whatever it takes to get new stuff (less deductible). Find out what kind of policy you have and if it's ACV, pay for replacement.

If you have a large collection of books, then they may be collectible. At this point your insurance agent is the person to talk to. It's still Contents, but it is typically excluded if they are "rare". However, this depends on the policy. If your agent says its covered even after you ask this question, get them to put it in writing. You should receive a copy of your policy when you sign up for insurance. Read it and ask what stuff means.

A Valuable Papers policy or Collectible policy typically require a value to be placed on the collection, which means an appraisal. This is tricky. I don't know of any experts on gaming collections. The insurance company might go to a store owner or use the Internet. Always inventory the collection including photos. Keep the inventory on computer and make a backup CD to store at work or in your car or at a friend or parent's house. Remember to update it at least once a year.

The issue with collectible policies is that the premium can be as much as 10% of the value of the collection. So in 10 years you paid for the collection twice unless you get an excellent quote.

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. I do work in the insurance industry. Good luck!

 

[jaerdaph]

I have renter's insurance that works something like this: rather than have every single item catalogued and appraised, I get a flat amount of $10,000 if my apartment is robbed, burned, or otherwise destroyed.

Costs a little more (I think), but it's better than dealing with the B.S. (at least I hope so *knocks wood*)

Edit: I do have a few irreplaceable items, such as my mint AD&D Dieties and Demigods with Lovcraftian Mythos stats (and the original $12 price tag sticker!) safely stored away elsewhere.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I have renter's insurance that works something like this: rather than have every single item catalogued and appraised, I get a flat amount of $10,000 if my apartment is robbed, burned, or otherwise destroyed.

As long as the contents of your apartment cost less than $10K to replace, sure! But try adding up all your stuff someday (clothes, TV, PC, DVDs, pots, pans, etc.)