Jump to content

Insuring your collection?


floyd_z
 Share

Recommended Posts

I just switched my homeowners insurance policy.  When I asked the agent to add the "High" discogs value of my collection, he basically said that would all be covered in my "Possessions" part of my policy or something confusing like that. 

I'm curious what kind of insurance you all have on your collection?  Do you have a separate policy for your collection or is it included in home owners?  Did you have an appraisal?  I feel like if I had to do an appraisal it would take forever.  The agent seemed skeptical that "old records" could be worth money.  I know most insurance companies are only worried about their profits.  Would they go off a discos collection page?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Almost certain mine are covered through our renters insurance. 
 

At about 4k records and a high Discogs value of $214.5k, I think we have it set at around $150-$200k. Pretty sure my partner just told them they were records, a very overwhelming amount/highly collectible/valuable collection and they just did it up.

 

It actually may be higher, because I think she took into consideration everything else in the room(books, shirts) which would add another $10k to the value of its entire contents.

 

I’m definitely not that person though, she takes care of all of that haha she works in law.

 

But yeah, I’m pretty sure she just told them that I’m a big “music collector”, we have a room where there’s a bunch of valuable shit in, we need to make sure it’s safe and that was it.

Edited by MyEnemy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, dawhizz said:

Following  as I’ve been contemplating this recently too and just keep forgetting to look into it. 

Same. I've been looking into this as well. Although I've only listed half of my collection. But I always go with my median value which is $33k. But these values have increased outrageously since 2020. What with everyone trying to get rich off of TS records...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah Im bad about this too, and I think you are right about coverage under homeowners but they cap that at some point so you may be sacrificing coverage somewhere else. As my collection has grown (also guitars and music 'stuff') ive thought about an add-on policy just dont know where to look or what to go with

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've discussed it with my homeowners agent and they said it would be covered. But that I also needed to maintain proof of everything, which they suggested making a video of the collection and having it saved somewhere outside the home. Not exactly the easiest thing to do for a big collection where you have to show the specificity of pressings. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FWIW, looked into this a few years ago and short story is read the fine print if you have a renters insurance policy.

 

The way many work is your '$100k' in total coverage or whatever is actually split out into buckets by type of property, each of which have per-bucket maximum payouts regardless if your overall policy amount. 

 

When I looked into actually covering the full value of my collection (median) it was going to be expensive AF.  Like 8% of the total value of.the collection annually. 

 

So I'm kinda just going with what I get via renters. But it's certainly far from full coverage. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/26/2022 at 2:06 AM, mike said:

I've discussed it with my homeowners agent and they said it would be covered. But that I also needed to maintain proof of everything, which they suggested making a video of the collection and having it saved somewhere outside the home. Not exactly the easiest thing to do for a big collection where you have to show the specificity of pressings. 

Yeah I'm on my way to 3k+ at this point, did you flip through every single record or just the spines?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/26/2022 at 2:40 AM, V3XED said:

.The way many work is your '$100k' in total coverage or whatever is actually split out into buckets by type of property, each of which have per-bucket maximum payouts regardless if your overall policy amount. 

 

When I looked into actually covering the full value of my collection (median) it was going to be expensive AF.  Like 8% of the total value of.the collection annually. 

THIS 100%.

We are in the process of building a new home (almost finished) and our Progressive insurance has ~$250k in overall "personal property', however, it has a breakdown of $500.00 for records, cds, etc. 

In the event of a total loss, i.e. the house burns down, the $250k will include the records along with everything else. 

In the event of stolen records, water damage, i.e. not a total loss, then the $500.00 limit applies.

My Discogs: min $82k, med $155k, max $266k. 

 

The estimate to add a rider to insure the entire collection in the event that there is not a total loss was somewhere around $1,200/mo, which is not worth it and I would rather take the hit of the few records someone takes/get damaged, than pay $14k/year to insure them.

 

Moving 4,000+ LPs was not an fun or easy task, so kudos to anyone who steals all of them out from under me in less than 15 minutes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, nate_8907 said:

Moving 4,000+ LPs was not a fun or easy task, so kudos to anyone who steals all of them out from under me in less than 15 minutes.

Big ups go out to anyone that thinks this is a great idea, does it, and then has no clue how to unload, or how fucking insane it is to unload, 4k records and actually make the money they’re worth haha

 

”We got ‘em, now what do we do with them?!” “Dude, this was your idea!”

Edited by MyEnemy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, nate_8907 said:

THIS 100%.

We are in the process of building a new home (almost finished) and our Progressive insurance has ~$250k in overall "personal property', however, it has a breakdown of $500.00 for records, cds, etc. 

In the event of a total loss, i.e. the house burns down, the $250k will include the records along with everything else. 

In the event of stolen records, water damage, i.e. not a total loss, then the $500.00 limit applies.

My Discogs: min $82k, med $155k, max $266k. 

 

The estimate to add a rider to insure the entire collection in the event that there is not a total loss was somewhere around $1,200/mo, which is not worth it and I would rather take the hit of the few records someone takes/get damaged, than pay $14k/year to insure them.

 

Moving 4,000+ LPs was not an fun or easy task, so kudos to anyone who steals all of them out from under me in less than 15 minutes.

You need to read the fine print. Most standard policies have that 500 dollar limit for media that is off premise such as in your car etc.

 

If its in your house, it should be up to the personal property limit.

 

Every homeowners policy I have had has been like this and never distinguished contents based on Total loss or partial loss.

 

With that said, I have never had Progressive as they actually don't underwrite the policy but use various other companies and entities

 

Edited by youspinmeround
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use AAA renter's insurance and I'm covered up to $25k in a fire or whatever if I want more than that I can pay for additional coverage but even if discogs says the median is more than double that I doubt I'd get more liquadating unless I sold every last record online and even then fees are going to eat up a portion and would take years

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, youspinmeround said:

You need to read the fine print. Most standard policies have that 500 dollar limit for media that is off premise such as in your car etc.

 

If its in your house, it should be up to the personal property limit.

 

Every homeowners policy I have had has been like this and never distinguished contents based on Total loss or partial loss.

 

Insurance companies have sub-limits on certain categories of items, like jewelry, firearms, collections, etc.  For me, records are a sub-limit at $500 total value insured.  A collector can always purchase a rider to increase the sub-limit value of certain categories.  The total personal property limit includes insurance up to all of the sub-limits, plus whatever does not have a sub-limit.

 

https://www.progressive.com/answers/personal-property-coverage/

https://www.allstate.com/resources/home-insurance/scheduled-personal-property

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×

AdBlock Detected

spacer.png

We noticed that you're using an adBlocker

Yes, I'll whitelist