Insurance on your video game collection - Anyone doing this?

[BurningDoom]

I have renter's insurance. But the bastards won't accept a list of the games/comics I own. And I'm afraid with the uncommon amount of each that I own, that they'll just think it's a bunch of BS and I'm trying to get more money out of them than I'm worth if anything were ever to happen.

[Croooow!]

I'm not going to lie, part of my motivation for posting pics of my collection is for insurance purposes as well as sharing my room and collection. I didn't know I would have to have separate insurance though to cover it... I am thinking my game collection is in the 15-20k range now, and it would be heart breaking to only get 500 to 1k for it or something in the event of some fire or theft... I suppose I should look into this.

Definitely. Insurance is one of those things everyone has to deal with but relatively few people know a lot about it. It will cost you more to cover your collection specifically but it really is worth it. When you are insuring any household personal property make sure you get replacement cost instead of actual cash value. If you only have the latter you will get screwed when it comes time for settlement. I can't tell you how many times I've come across someone who only had actual cash value coverage and got almost nothing when lightning knocked out all of their electronics.

[Hazerd]

Anyone have a inventory list of their collection on like a website, or excel document? I was thinking rfgeneration, or i would do excel, but i suck at templates.

[mjmjr25]

@crooooow

I go through a local insurance company so I have a steady head to talk to, but the actual coverage is provided by "Integrity Property and Casualty".

The collection itself is the concern, if I went by game by game via vgpc or ebay completed listings it's going to conservatively be over 25K, hence thread.

Can you ballpark what "replacement cost" insurance on something like that would add to the home insurance premium?

The other thing i've considered is fire-proof safes and just storing the extremely valuable stuff in there - if say it was going to run $100 a month just to insure.

I'm like JMustang, a lot of my photos on racket / photobucket are for purposes like this, but I also know unless its specified in the policy, the photos are worthless.

[Croooow!]

Can you ballpark what "replacement cost" insurance on something like that would add to the home insurance premium?

How much an item or collection costs to schedule will depend on the item and on the company. My wife's wedding ring is insured for $2100 and we pay $22 a year to have it scheduled. This is for Actual Cash Value though because my company doesn't offer Replacement Cost for scheduled items. This is good enough for us though as our company views ACV as the fair market value for an item, pretty much what we would be able to sell it for ourselves. This would be good enough if I had a very large collection of used games as well. If we use what we pay on my wife's ring as a guide, insuring a $25k collection might cost $250/year or so.

The reason I was pushing Replacement Cost is that a lot of companies will view ACV as replacement cost less depreciation due to age. This difference doesn't mean much on something like a computer as the fair market value and depreciation would be roughly equal. On something like a bunch of cartridge games, however, the latter view of ACV will see those games as akin to a bunch of VHS tapes (basically "obsolete" entertainment media) and won't take the market value into account.

From what it sounds like with your first post your company takes the above view as well. If you are going to schedule your collection (which would be the smart thing to do) definitely check with your agent if the loss will be settled on a market value basis or if it'll be the same way they settled your septic claim. Opting for replacement cost might cost an arm an a leg, if it's even offered. You just want to check if your company's product is enough to meet your needs.

[mjmjr25]

^Very helpful, thank you.

[Mechblue]

great thread. I've wanted to document my collection for a while but hard to really get things photo graphed how I have stuff stored.

A friend of mine had some of his games stolen back in the 90's and his insurance company instead of just writing a check actually tracked down some of the games he had and bought them. What ones they couldn't get they paid him for.

I'll have to look in to my insurance policy, I've wondered about coverage. I have a huge excel list of every game and what I have, box, manual, etc. For insurance purposes but also so I can check on my phone if I already have a game or if I needed one in better shape.

[Luke]

The way I have it set up is that my "estate" is insured. Pretty much everything under the sun that I own is included. The process is a pain in the tuckus though. Hours in offices, strangers going through your house and going through your stuff is no fun at all.

If you have a large collection, the appraiser will more than likely ballpark the figure, and they're not going to itemize every item which can be both good and bad. You'd like to know your total net worth, but the lower you're worth, the lower the insurance cost.

[weaponepsilon]

Yeah, actually when I lived in an apartment complex with a bunch of seedy and pyromaniac types, I had in my policy include the value of my collection. To seal the deal, I spent the better part of a day going through box after box of my collection cataloging each title and piece. I keep the file updated and regularly upload it to my email for reference (in case of the computer being lost.) Also, I use the compiled numbers for my sig..

[kelsoanim]

Whoops, sorry for the dup thread. Feel free to delete this thread Mods.