Insurance on your video game collection - Anyone doing this?
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:32 pm
Background:
My septic system backed up about 14 months ago, a few inches of standing / nasty water on our lower level floor. Nothing gaming related was damaged, mostly just the new flooring, some tools, some furniture, baseboards, rugs, etc.
For all of that stuff, our home insurance covered. It was our first insurance claim - we (my wife and I) were pretty amused at the process. Everything had a price already set - despite what we paid for it. Name brand did not matter (good if you have off-brand, bad if you have quality name-brand) for items like rugs / furniture / televisions, etc. For example, we claimed one leather lazyboy that we paid $600 for, it was 2 years old and the price on 2yr old recliner was like $210 or something. I claimed a drill also, a Milwaukee 1/2" corded drill that was damaged, I got $150 for that, and I only paid $99 on amazon. A very odd process.
Drywall, baseboard, flooring was all the same, most we got close to what we paid, some a bit under, but all and all we came out ok, considering our initial fears.
Then it got interesting. I tried to claim an uncut sheet / set of 1992 topps basketball (Shaquille O'Neal rookie among others). She asked how many cards were on the sheet(s) and I told her 4 sheets at about 80 cards per sheet. She said, "So then $32 on that, anything else?" !! I mean, !!! She could tell I was pissed and she clarified that baseball cards are $0.10 apiece, there are no caveats for value, rarity, uncut, etc. I asked how could that be, what if it was my box of really good stuff? She stated I needed to have it appraised and privately / separately insured.
I asked the same question about video games and she said they are like $10 for new games and $2.50 for older games. Same thing, if it is a valuable collection I will want to have it appraised and an added monthly fee into our home insurance can be added.
So this weekend I was arranging some things and taking an inventory of my stuffs when I realized I had not done this yet.
My question to the community - Has anyone done this? Has anyone appraised their collection and taken out insurance on it? Describe the process - as far as startup, talk about premiums you pay, talk about the process if you sell a game or acquire a game...do you need to call your carrier for each acquisition to have it added?
I'd like to get this taken care of soon, but would like to seek any advice from y'all first.
My septic system backed up about 14 months ago, a few inches of standing / nasty water on our lower level floor. Nothing gaming related was damaged, mostly just the new flooring, some tools, some furniture, baseboards, rugs, etc.
For all of that stuff, our home insurance covered. It was our first insurance claim - we (my wife and I) were pretty amused at the process. Everything had a price already set - despite what we paid for it. Name brand did not matter (good if you have off-brand, bad if you have quality name-brand) for items like rugs / furniture / televisions, etc. For example, we claimed one leather lazyboy that we paid $600 for, it was 2 years old and the price on 2yr old recliner was like $210 or something. I claimed a drill also, a Milwaukee 1/2" corded drill that was damaged, I got $150 for that, and I only paid $99 on amazon. A very odd process.
Drywall, baseboard, flooring was all the same, most we got close to what we paid, some a bit under, but all and all we came out ok, considering our initial fears.
Then it got interesting. I tried to claim an uncut sheet / set of 1992 topps basketball (Shaquille O'Neal rookie among others). She asked how many cards were on the sheet(s) and I told her 4 sheets at about 80 cards per sheet. She said, "So then $32 on that, anything else?" !! I mean, !!! She could tell I was pissed and she clarified that baseball cards are $0.10 apiece, there are no caveats for value, rarity, uncut, etc. I asked how could that be, what if it was my box of really good stuff? She stated I needed to have it appraised and privately / separately insured.
I asked the same question about video games and she said they are like $10 for new games and $2.50 for older games. Same thing, if it is a valuable collection I will want to have it appraised and an added monthly fee into our home insurance can be added.
So this weekend I was arranging some things and taking an inventory of my stuffs when I realized I had not done this yet.
My question to the community - Has anyone done this? Has anyone appraised their collection and taken out insurance on it? Describe the process - as far as startup, talk about premiums you pay, talk about the process if you sell a game or acquire a game...do you need to call your carrier for each acquisition to have it added?
I'd like to get this taken care of soon, but would like to seek any advice from y'all first.
