Insuring your collection

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Posted By: Anonymous

The last thread by Cathy caused me to ponder; Does anyone actually insure their collections?.. As I doubt it would be covered by a simple homeowners policy and may require a Rider (sp). It also occured to me that if you are constantly selling, trading or buying you have to frequently notify the Ins. guy of your current checklist. Any insight?

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Posted By: Josh K.

if you do a search of the site, you will find numerous past discussions regarding insurance and the various companies that insure bb cards. There are two or three companies that specifically insure collections - with no riders, no inventory, etc. I think numerous board members (myself incl.) insure their cards.

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Posted By: JimB

If you go to vintage links on this site, there are links to two collectibles insurance agencies. You can read about their policies there. I believe a lot of collectors insure their collections.
JimB

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Posted By: fdnyladder7

Thanks for the replies gang. Called Linda @ CIA 1-888-837-9537 ... For "personal" collections kept in the home approx. $40-50/yr for $10K coverage. Dealer policies are more $ and complicated of course.

Reckon I'll just insure the cards that will need to pried from my cold dead hands and not the "liquid" cards.

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Posted By: Josh K.

If you are a collector who buys and sells, I dont think you would have to get a dealer policy. Of course, if you are a full time dealer or do a lot of shows, that would likely change thinks. By the way, I went with CIA as well - I thought that they provided the best coverage for the money.

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Posted By: cmoking

Insurance always goes smoothly until something happens. Then it may not be as smooth.

Has anyone ever had theft or damage to their collection and went back to the insurance company to collect? I wonder how those went.

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Posted By: Josh K.

I believe in some of the earlier posts on this topic there were a couple of collectors who had experienced a loss and stated that the claim process went very smoothly.

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Posted By: Jeff

As a former property (homeowners) claims adjuster, my best advice is to have sufficient documentation to support your collection. An inventory is essential, as are pictures. I just took a whole bunch of digital photos of my entire house, burned them onto a CD, and put it in a safety deposit box along with an inventory of my collection. You have to be prepared to prove what you had in the event of a loss. I can tell you from experience that baseball cards, coins and comic books are one of the most frequently claimed things in fraudulent theft losses, so they are automatically a little suspect.

I'm sure some of the insurance bashing that typically surfaces on threads such as this will come up again. There are bad insurance carriers and good ones, bad adjusters and good ones... and bad insureds and good ones. It's up to you to put yourself in the best position possible to support your damages in the event of a loss. If you do that, things should go well.

Jeff

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Posted By: bruce dorskind

For the past 24 years I have ensured with Chubb.

I have had one claim on a $10,500 card that was stolen
and I recieved payment within 10 days.

I pay about 1.5-2.0% of the market value which I update
every year

Each item worth over $2500 is inidivually listed.

The more common items with less than $1000 in value
are grouped by set- i.e. Delongs or 1933 Goudey.

Prior to the first policy I received an appraisal from
Robert Lifson.

If you have a collection where the value exceeds $50,000
at retail- then it is worth it to insure with a world class
insurance company. It has been my experience that
the company matters more than the broker

Bruce

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Posted By: Josh K.

For what its worth, CIA uses Hartford as the carrier for its policies. I believe that they have the highest rating given to insurance companies.