Collectibles Insurance - Stories about claims

[parkplace33]

In the two posts this year about the Memory Lane fiasco and the Dallas Show theft, collectibles insurance and claims were brought up many times. While I have no idea if claims against insurance was used in those two instances, it brought up some questions. Have any board members had to use collectible insurance? If so, how was the process, timeline, etc.?

[hcv123]

CIS was very easy to work with. They asked for copies of the police report, contact information for the detective working the case and comps for what was stolen. A little bit of negotiation and we were agreed on a settlement amount. I don't recall how long the process took, but I am sure it was timely, if it weren't, I likely would remember it. I was definitely satisfied with the process.

[jingram058]

I had mine on our Farmer's Insurance. In the aftermath of hurricane Ian, Farmer's pulled out of Florida. Now we have Citizen's, and I was able to simply transfer over. There was a process, but it was fairly straightforward.

EDIT: I have never had to file a claim; but my collection is insured.

[Peter_Spaeth]

One claim for an almost unheard of occurrence -- a box actually disappeared after being in the mail system. Notified agent, received a check within a week or two, didn't have to wait months to see if it showed up.

[philo98]

I have CIS and although I have not had a claim yet, went with this company after hearing similar stories to Howard's. Also, being a global nomad and at times not coming back to the US for many years at a time, I have my collection stored across safe deposit boxes, safes in a storage unit and other properties and they were able to easily and with zero hassle, draft a policy that covered everything I needed at the locations I wanted.

[rand1com]

CIS is my current insurance company. Been with them for 4 years or so.

No claims so far but I like they way they operate. You can add or subtract from the total coverage during the year if you make a large purchase or sell a pricey item.

I had Chubb before that but the inventory listing/valuation was cumbersome. Not sure if they still use that system or not.

[CardPadre]

With a CIS dealer policy, the policy deductible is $500 I believe. So maybe you’d feel mostly protected on shipping a $10k card, but it’s kind of light on the coverage for a $1k card and non-existent protection for a $500 card.

[jchcollins]

So. I thought I had read my entire policy. Turns out, what they send you in the mail is just a summary, and some of the first few pages. The actual policy I found in my email is 20-something pages long.

This would seem to be the most relevant language about the situation I could find in the policy that I apparently have:




So what this says to me is what they told me, if sometimes I "incidentally" sell items from my PC, it should not be counted as "Dealer stock."

I'm not a dealer. I don't have an or S-Corp or sole prop. or anything like that setup. I don't get 1099's from Paypal or eBay to report sales income. I've actually done some research on this over the last few years, and per IRS standards, I would actually most likely fit the "collectibles / hobby" description for what I do when I sell, which unfortunately is the least advantageous category when you report income from this kind of thing. My collecting and selling activity at the moment (something I'm trying to change) is basically a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario. For example:

John sees a random prewar card he wants (happened the other week). Foolishly probably, just buys it and gets the credit card points, then comes home a week later and to pay for it, I find a Mantle to sell. Am I the only one who (at least sometimes) operates in this broken manner? In any event - I don't maintain dealer stock, and I don't have a group of cards set aside at home that I'm secretly planning to sell for a profit. It just sometimes happens that I need to move something to get out from being underwater on what I just bought.

How would CIS see that scenario? I rarely sell a truly "big" card to me - say north of $1,000. But the last few times I have, I have only paid the USPS for signature confirmation, on the premise that if whatever it is got lost in the mail, I would be covered under my CIS policy. If this is not true, it kinda sucks because postal insurance anymore is pretty expensive.

Ugh. I need to just quit selling cards...


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