Is your gear insured?

MaxCast · « **on:** 6 May 2003, 07:32 pm »

Just wondering if anyone checked out the particulars on thier homeowners insurance regarding hi-fi gear? Is it covered and at what value? Did you have to have a separate rider?

cjr888 · « **Reply #1 on:** 6 May 2003, 08:29 pm »

I'm stuck in rental land, and most definitely have coverage for all of my components and music library. When I initiated, I went through step by step everything I owned, estimated its value, etc, and confirmed coverage for the audio stuff more than anything.

ehider · « **Reply #2 on:** 6 May 2003, 09:08 pm »

YES! By all means get a separate rider on your insurance for your high end equipment and accessories!

Years ago I faced a theft situaiton and then subsequently filed a claim on my $500 interconnects along with the other various equipment pieces that were stolen.

Care to guess how my insurance company handled the cable situation? The damn insurance company would only give me a "replacement value" interconnect of $69.95, which was the cost of Monster Cables best "retail" interconnect at that time. Additionally it took me over a year to settle on the $2300 cd player which they wanted to replace with a $500 "equivilent" unit!

That whole experience was very frustrating. As of today I now spend an extra $28 a year for an itemized rider which covers $37,000 worth of high end equipment and accesories. In my opinion the extra 28 bucks is well worth it.

Ferdi · « **Reply #3 on:** 6 May 2003, 09:37 pm »

Agreed. I also have specifically checked my equipment is fully covered. I still need to check into the media though. I understand many have had problems with that in the past.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #4 on:** 7 May 2003, 01:00 am »

Yeah, I made sure my gear & media were all covered. A guy really does need to carry a good amount of insurance, and even though I have some irreplaceable CDs and stuff, it's nice to know most you could replace all the rest if it was burned or stolen.

MaxCast · « **Reply #5 on:** 7 May 2003, 01:12 am »

Oh yea, the media too. Do you have to make a list of just provide a number of CD's? I would dread making a list. In fact, I wouldn't mind replacing all my cd's as there are many I never listen too anymore.

Thanks for the rider info, Eric. I agree, $28 a year is not much for the peace of mind.

I'll be talking to my agent in the morning.

jbgcpa · « **Reply #6 on:** 7 May 2003, 01:28 pm »

Consider making a video of all the items that are (or should be) covered by your insurance. Then store the video in a different location. You could easily scan the spines of all your CDs leaving you with a record that nobody could dispute.

Jack

TheeeChosenOne · « **Reply #7 on:** 7 May 2003, 06:50 pm »

I would recommend Amica for insurance--bar none the BEST insurance carrier.

They won't dick you over. They are the highest rated in service in just about any/every publication.

Truly worth the money for piece-of-mind!

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #8 on:** 7 May 2003, 10:13 pm »

Uh, TCO, I think your avatar needs resizing!

Anyway, it's a very wise idea to videotape your stuff for proof of ownership, and store the copy off-premises, like in a safe deposit box. Insurance companies aren't gonna be eager to pay out tens of thousands of bucks without some proof that you ever had the stuff to start with.

Sean Parque · « **Reply #9 on:** 7 May 2003, 10:26 pm »

Certainly do have insurance. I asked about the audio equipment and software and was told it is covered. Unfortunately I have had the pleasure of testing that.

I have over $10K worth of CD's and DVD'd stolen last year. Lucky for me I am insane and catalog all my gear finely. I had the artist and album name of everything that was taken. It's taken nearly a full year to recover and I've gotten about half value as of last week.

They said it's due to depreciation. If I want the remainder, I have to go buy the stolen items and send in the receipts and they will cut a difference check.

It seems most of the standard polcies cover this stuff...I did not have to do or pay anything extra for the $35,000 in insurance coverage..

Sean

MaxCast · « **Reply #10 on:** 8 May 2003, 01:00 am »

%$&#%
I forgot to call the insurance company.
That video tape idea is a good one.

jcoat007 · « **Reply #11 on:** 14 May 2003, 04:42 pm »

After reading this post I called my insurance company to discuss this issue. They told me to compile a list of my equipment and send it to them. They would then decide if seperate coverage was in order or if it was already covered under my existing policy. They said the more information that I had the better in case of a claim, because they typically replace with an equivalent item. So being able to show them pictures, features and retail prices for every item would definitely help my cause.

So I put together a binder with a listing of all of my equipemnt as well as print-outs from every website for every manufacturer of everything that I own. I am now going to take digital pictures and compile everything onto a CD. Once complete, I will just need to update when changes occur.

The downside is that I actually listed the cost of every item (what I paid for it) and the retail cost if bought new. This binder is so incriminating that there is absoutely no way I could ever show it to my wife.

So now I am going to scan the whole thing into an adobe acrobat file. I will then transfer it to a CDR to keep in some offsite location and also e-mail it to myself for safe keeping. The I'm going to burn the hard copy.

Anyway, thanks for the posts. Without them I wouldn't have gone through this.

Steve

MaxCast · « **Reply #12 on:** 14 May 2003, 06:03 pm »

Damn boy! That is a lot of work. You could start a software package and sell it

A person could just fill in the spaces, insert a few photo's and BAM! Done.
I started a list of items, ser. no., model no., price, etc, etc. Some items are a bit hard to get to in the wall unit

No glossys but I will do a video once I get all my CD's in one place.