Insurance for Photography Gear

Parke1953

Thanks DenverShooter I will be going this morning and hope to have peace of mind this afternoon. It's funny I didn't think much about it until I bought the AF-S 80-400mm and realized I had $6000 in my hand with it and the camera.

DenverShooter

I dropped my D7000 two years ago in March onto a wooden floor sans lens and it didn't like it a bit (went Tango Uniform). Sinking pit of the stomach feeling...

Called my agent and the claims folks called me back. Told me that if the cost of repair was greater than 50% of new cost they would buy me a new one. I just needed an estimate. I sent it back to Nikon who charged me $147 to fix it including a full clean and check. I told the insurance folks to drop the claim. They were disappointed and told me that it wouldn't impact my insurance cost and there was no deductible. I thanked them for their time and declined to proceed with the claim.

There is a time and a place for everything and that wasn't it, not for $147!

Denver Shooter

Photobug

I dropped my D7000 two years ago in March onto a wooden floor sans lens and it didn't like it a bit (went Tango Uniform). Sinking pit of the stomach feeling...

There is a time and a place for everything and that wasn't it, not for $147!

+1 Amen. I had a tree snap in high winds years ago and it cost us $350 to replace. It was not worth filing a claim. Don't remember what our deductible was (probably $250) back then, but it was not worth it.

Vipmediastar_JZ

Here is an article as an example of why insurance is valuable

framer

I dropped my D3s off a table to a concrete floor, it hit smack on the 50mm 1.4 afd lens. Camera was fine but the lens had push in and would not focus. I took it apart and reset the placement of the lens, worked perfect. I did give it to a daughter in law for her Nikon. It's still in use. Now how much have I saved by not insuring my gear for 40 years is the question...


framer

Hval

Eek,
I have just discovered that I am not covered by home contents insurance for much of my stuff. I thought I was. There is a small clause that says "any item valued ate over £1,000 must be listed" (€1,300 or $1,630). I have just filled out an online form with Hiscox, who won't touch me with a barge pole if I wish to include the camera gear as part of house contents insurance. It also looks like the value of my computer gear also takes me out if your standard insurance policies with any normal company.

Is it normal/ acceptable to get items covered by different companies? So my normal contents covered by a company, camera gear by A. N. Other coy, and computer gear by yet another company?

So, who can recommend a company who will insure me for about £45,000 worth of camera gear ($74,000 or €57,140) and £50,000 (€64,000 or $81,500) worth of computer gear? I am an amateur, not a professional. Also, am UK based, but some computer gear, and all camera gear can end up anywhere?

I should then be abLe to get the other 2 cents of house contents covered.

retread

I have the big items listed ($500 or more) on my household insurance. They told me it would be $190 per year more if I were a professional.

Hval

@ Retread,

Thanks for your response. I shall approach my insurers to see what they will want. That should be interesting.

Parke1953

I got my stuff insured back in April for just over $100 a year, just in case I get robbed or stolen from the car or hotel.
@framer my guess about $4000 and a bit. It can happen anytime, anywhere.

studio460

I've been looking for a new carrier for a while now since the company I used to insure with only covers "forced entry," and not robbery or theft from "un-forced entry" (e.g., a member of the hotel staff gains entry with a key). Though, companies like Hicox tend to be very expensive for this kind of coverage. Also, I can't use any homeowners'-type policies, since I do get paid to shoot. Here's something I wrote on another forum which may be helpful to some:

Most homeowners' insurance policies do not cover single items valued over $5,000 (due to greater risk). In fact, some policies limit single-item coverage to as low as $1,000, $2,000, or $2,500. For items of $1,000 or more, you typically need a "valuable items" policy, which of course, demands higher premiums. For me, I specifically didn't want a homeowners' policy, since they generally exclude any commercial use of any insured items. If you charge money to shoot, you need a business policy.

As far as I could tell, the best deal in equipment/professional liability insurance is available to members of photo.net. Join as a paying member to the site ($25/year), and you receive decent coverage for only $350 a year. You also need to buy the $1 million liability coverage, but that's okay, since most commercial venues require a certificate of insurance before they'll allow you to bring gear and work on their property. The photo.net insurer is Willis Insurance, which I believe also has a $5,000 single-item maximum (at least at this discounted rate).

Note that Willis will provide "additional insured loss/payee" certificates of insurance within 24 hours of your request, by e-mail. At a wedding a couple years ago, the venue required certificates for both shooters--the B&G had to pay for a pricey $600, one-day insurance policy from another provider (we were donating our services to the bride, a co-worker, as our gift). In contrast, Willis' liability premium is a pretty good deal.

Subscription fee to photo.net (required): $25
General liability: $1 million; $2 million aggregate (required) = $175
Equipment coverage costs $10 per $1,000, with a $150 minimum = $150 for $15,000 coverage

So, for only $350 per year, you get $1 million liability coverage, plus $15,000 of equipment coverage. It's the best deal I've found. Note that the equipment insurance covers "forced entry" only (residential burglary, vehicle break-in, etc.). If you're held up at gunpoint, or drop your gear in the ocean--no coverage. The cool thing about Ellis' policy is that it covers gear stolen from vehicles (some don't)--so you can safely keep unused gear stored in your trunk when working any given venue.

Radioactive

Hello,
I have $5000 of camera and lenses insured by State Farm for $50 a year. I am a non-professional and the insurance covers everything, drops, lost, stolen.

Photobug

Hello,
I have $5000 of camera and lenses insured by State Farm for $50 a year. I am a non-professional and the insurance covers everything, drops, lost, stolen.

Did you do that with a rider policy? I also have State Farm and need to check this out.

ExpensiveHobby

I insure all items in my camera bag with a value of $500 or more. I carry a highly valued articles policy through USAA. When I need to add or delete an item from the policy, it is very easy to go online and make the change.

My USAA policy covers me for loss through damage (I dropped it on the ground), theft (from home, rental car, or hotel room), or just plain being forgetful and leaving it.

I also have USAA for my Auto and Home insurance, and am now looking into the valuable personal items policy. It looks to me that I can get insurance in $100 increments and cannot be used to cover personal computer equipment. I asked the agent if I should use current estimated value or replacement value of the items, and she said to treat the cost as replacement. That being said, I use mostly DX equipment at this point in time and am planning to price out a range for each item. The low end (replace with new of same or newest generation) versus the high end (replace with FX version) to see what my premium could be between.

Besides some people only covering items above $XXX in value, does anyone else have any suggestions on how to value the equipment?

Just to emphasize, there would be $0 deductable, covers loss, theft, accidental damage, and requires I provide serial numbers, description, value for each item, and pictures. The premium is approximately 2.2% of the total insured value per year.

DenverShooter

I use a rider on my homeowners insurance which is supplied by Country Insurance.

Zero deductible and its 1% of the cost of the item per year. Covers all losses (dropped, stolen you name it).

Denver Shooter

Pistnbroke

I have two insurances the paper one and the second is all my gear is in a box chained to the floor of my trunk and the D800 contains a tracker ..dial it on the I phone and the map gives location.equipment is marked with smart water and the internal memory contains my details just in case they remove the serial no. Not much more you can do .

ExpensiveHobby

I'm mostly concerned about accidentally damaging the equipment vs having it stolen. If I could get a DX dslr that I wouldn't be scared to get caught out in the rain with I'd feel a lot better. Pistnbroke, as an example, how do you value your gear? Do you use current used market value, brand new of current production model (D800 becomes D810) or something in between?

Parke1953

@ExpensiveHobby I just made copy's of my receipts,done.

PB_PM

Yes, always base the value on the original sale price (including any taxes) because you want to be insured for what it would cost to replace the equipment with a new unit.

ExpensiveHobby

Recently I have talked to a few insurance companies to get quotes and they varied widely in their coverage. One issue I was having, is that they often cover the "agreed upon" value (provided by appraisal or receipt) and not what I would call a replacement value (the amount it would cost me to get a new lens to replace the functionality of the insured lens).

For example, the 18-70mm Nikkor I use came as a kit lens to my D70s in 2006, I do not have the original receipt and cannot get Circuit City to give me a copy (they no longer exist). A used 18-70 might be found on ebay for $100-150 in similar condition. Since they are not manufactured at this time, I would want to replace it with a new 16-85mm VR. The new 16-85 VR on B&H is approximately $700. This $700 cost is what I want to insure for (ignoring taxes, inflation, etc. for this example), because that is how much the functionality would cost for me to replace.

In this case PB_PM, how would you insure the 18-70?


With USAA, I can get the exact coverage I want for about 2.2% the total insured cost, but I am unable to get a comparable quote to find if the cost is reasonable (they usually are pretty close or much better than other companies).

PB_PM

That often happens with older equipment. Most insurance companies won't give you replacement cost beyond a set period of time, 4-5 years of purchase usually.