Thanks to all of you that kept me up to date on recent auctions, even though I didn't get a chance to bid on most (and beasterbrook beat me out on the interface mags I put a snipe in on).  I will likely be returning to collecting soon, the wife insisted we buy a house...so assuming I did my budgeting correctly, I should again have some free cash to spend.

The main purpose for this post is to find out if anyone else has tried to insure thier collection, and what steps/resources did you use.  I am considering adding extra insurance on my policy to cover my meager collection, however, as i have never done that before, I am not sure what I would need to present to show the value of the individual books.

Any advice/suggestions out there?

~jeff

I tried to get insure my stuff at a point in the past and the company wanted 10% of the value of the collection per year in premiums

I told them to go f**ck themselves

J

faro wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:I tried to get insure my stuff at a point in the past and the company wanted 10% of the value of the collection per year in premiums

I told them to go f**ck themselves

Good idea.
I pay $190/yr. for $60,000 of coverage on philatelic items. Should not be that much more for RPG collectables.
Home insurance covers most of mine as they are classed as books up to a limit of $250 each.

KingofPain's fiancee is in the insurance industry. She says Chubb insurance will handle collectibles...maybe King can chime in here with some advice.

Mike B.

I spoke with my insurance company about my comic book collection several years ago. They stated that it could be covered under my home owner's insurance.



The steps that will most aid you in the event somethings happens are proof of what you have (and then proving their worth).



For instance, take many detailed pictures of everything. Itemize all your items (you can even grade them if you like) and note the appoximate value of each. Make sure these are stored somewhere outside your home as well. There are ways to establish value if the collectible nature is not widely known. The acaeum, itself, is a resource that you could use. As is ebay.





The reason it was not necessary for me to get additional insurance for the comics themselves, is they weren't nearly valuable enough to exceed my policy. For instance, say your policy covers you for 100,000 on replacing the contents of your house (this may be divided into other smaller limits such as a jewelry max, collectible max, etc.) Just because you can conceivably get $100,000 doesn't mean you will though . . . it is up to you to prove what you own and what it is worth. The contents of our house do not nearly equal the max coverage we have, which leaves me plenty of room to submit for reimbursement on collectibles.



If you have a detailed list, pics to prove it and a price guide to go by, that's a good case to submit to your insurance. Additionally, if you buy any big ticket items, you could save the receipt for additional proof.

I looked into it some years back (what it would take to insure my own collection).  In short, my insurance company *would* insure the collection under what they call a "Personal Articles Floater".  However, in determining replacement value, they require the collection be professionally appraised.

The American Society of Appraisers (don't know if there's other, similar organizations) will certify you as an appraiser if, among other qualifications, you have professionally worked in the particular field for a minimum of three years.  While this disqualifies myself (haven't worked professionally), I'd think it would leave the door open to resellers who could show that they earned a majority of their income from the business of selling RPG's.

Just a thought.

Foul

faro wrote:Would be interesting that I might have to ask the likes of Dave Whitfield (coug) for an appraisal were the same system in operation here for RPG items.

Might not be such a bad thing if you needed to make a claim.

Based on his retail prices, your collection should treble in value!   Not so good news for the insurance premiums though.

I had Quincey Koziol do some appraising for me a bunch of years ago when he owned Titan Games.  I'm sure Aaron at Noble Knight or Mike at Dragon's Trove could do the same today.