Advice on insurance

Earlier this week, some thieving ne'er-do-well decided to enter our house and help himself to a selection of phones, laptops and jewellery earlier this week. Fortunately my camera kit was largely missed (since most of it is in a cupboard high in the kids' playroom, which generally looks as if it has been ransacked already), but I lost my old K-m, A Z30 and Sony TX-5.

Whilst it is amusing, in retrospect, that they moved but didn't notice a flight case with my K and A lens collections in it (K28/2, A50/1.2, K85...) to empty out a drawer full of t-shirts (with nothing but t-shirts in it), going through the process of making an insurance claim highlighted how difficult it probably would be to get a fair settlement for old lenses in particular.

Does anyone have any experience, tips or advice on ensuring that their old lenses are adequately covered? My only other experience of insuring unusual risks is with classic cars, where specialist insurers offer an 'agreed value' policy. For these, they inspect your vehicle and agree its value when you take out the policy, as book vales on a 40 year old vehicle are negligible. Is there a similar scheme for classic camera gear?

It's more likely that insurance companies will offer "new-for-old" cover, but in any case, log your lenses by brand, focal length, and most importantly, serial number. If they were to get nicked, not only will your insurance be more likely to believe you owned them in the first place, Old Bill will be able to reconcile them when they catch the little sh.. - you know what's!

It's most likely that it's been junkies that broke into your home, as the goods nicked are highly sellable for a quick profit, so ask around your local boozers to see if your stuff's been offered there. Next port of call will be the local Cash Converters shops. Take any receipts (bearing equipment serial numbers) with you as proof of ownership. Most likely if CC has any of your stuff, you will have to call the police in, as they will no doubt argue that they took the goods in good faith (although they should ask to see evidence of purchase from these thieving little oiks!)

Finally, get in touch with Glover & Howe (there should be a banner ad for them on this site) and ask how they are likely to handle any claim for classic gear, but it's most likely they would replace any 35mm stuff with digital equipment, as the digital is easier to get hold of in today's market.

Insurance can be very, very tricky, so probably best to talk in detail with your insurers. If they won't take on the risk in a proper manner, perhaps another company will.

There are specialist photographic insurers, there's one in the PU Shop area at the top of the page I think, but have a look in the back of AP and other magazines.

Collectables are difficult and I know a friend was unable to insure his rare record collection as even discs he had paid hundreds of pounds for the insurers would only accept at basic value.

Thanks everyone - I had a feeling it might not be entirely straightforward.

I think that's my main concern. Whilst I'd be very happy if they replaced my A50/1.7 with, say, a DA50/1.8, finding a new equivalent of a K135/2.5 is a bit trickier!

The Police and CID have been very helpful and they found some good footprints, and so, to quote them, will "go round and visit a few of the usual suspects. If we find any of their shoes that match, we'll search their house and try to leave it in a bit of a mess".

Interestingly, we have a pack of sterile needles and other kit for travel to places where you can't reliably get such things, which they found and didn't take, so if they were junkies, they weren't even very good at that!

Good advice - I'll certainly do this and have a busy weekend of photographing and cataloguing stuff ahead...

Hello

Whilst insurance companies do have a bad name and in many cases rightly so when it comes to home insurance they are usually pretty good.

With regard to yor photo kit it may be best to pick up a photo mag and identify as many of the lenses stolen as closely as possible with those for sale in the dealers adverts/ classifieds section to give a replacement cost.

With regard to proving ownership make a list of all stolen lenses then add as much info as possible even a web link to you commenting on the lens or a photo with it should be enough to persuade your insurer that you owned the lens.

More often than not your insurers will send a loss adjuster, when he or she gets onto the photo stuff make sure you have a lap top to hand (borrow one if you have to if yours was stolen) then start referring them to shots on flickr etc you have taken and I suspect that very soon an offer will be on the table to avoid that person having to sit through a lot of photo's Lets face it proof of having a lens is fairly easy especially a web link discussion about it

Much the same way as when you want visitors to go home you can say 'right I'll get the photo's out'

And don't forget to haggle and add postage as this is a legitimate cost when replacing items

If you need a hand send me a PM - I have way toooo many years of expereience working with insurers that I can use to help

Cheers


Stu