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Do any of you have insurance to cover your collections?

I have over $20,000 of models, terrain, materials, etc, and don't know how to actually insure it. Do any of you have suggestions with regards to insurance of little toy soldiers?

Contact your agent and discuss a floater or other valuables endorsement - you can cover anything this way. Sure, it will add a little more to your normal home owner/renter's insurance, but if you are concerned about coverage, that is the way to go. I am not sure about coverages in Canada, though...

General contents policy will cover it on your insurance. You could also check with your insurer and get the stuff listed specifically on the insurance.

I have a £15,000 computer on the premises and its covered by contents and separately named as well on the insurance . It has never effected the price of the policy in over 5 years.

Be warned that its not covered if it leaves the house unless you get an additional policy. I pay an extra £50 a year so its covered outside the house as well.

Renters and Homeowners insurances are a little different, but generally your home insurance will cover all of your "goods," which will include your miniatures. Most policies have pretty high caps on total goods, but if you have a concern, check your policy compared to all of your household goods, including your warhams. My Homeowners policy covers far, far more personal property than I own. (Note, my policy, and thus I'm assuming many others, have limits for many things, including firearms, stamps, trading cards, and comic books.)

In practice, what's more important is to establish what you actually have. This means a detailed inventory, with pictures. The coverage is also for replacement cost, but subtracts depreciation based on age and condition... so don't expect to get $50 each for battered old tactical squads. But... that 15 year old Chaplain blister that cost you $8 would be replaced by a brand new plastic kit.

Insurance adjusters are naturally skeptical, because fraud is so common. but if you have the coverage, and documentation of how you spent $20k on your hobby, that shouldn't be too problematic.

Polonius has touched on an important subject above. If your collection was stolen or destroyed in a fire how many people could actually prove the contents with pictures and receipts to the insurance company ?

Not me

While we are on the subject I recently had the house fire inspected(insurance company requirement) by the fire brigade as we have outside contractors sometimes working on the premises. One thing that was picked up that I have enough hazardous stuff(paint, brush cleaner etc etc) in the same room as my models to cause a small nuclear explosion. Its firstly down right dangerous, invalidates your insurance storing it in the house and the first thing to be destroyed would be the models.

Makes you think...

Yes, you need to look at your policy, as without a special endorsement your high total collection will not be covered in its entirety. Likewise with jewelry and many other items there is a limit to many specific items. And, yes, documentation is important, even if it is just a video of you walking around your place to show items, furniture, collections, etc. Anything that helps show you had it, but just because your insurance covers $100k in personal property, don't make the mistake of thinking they will shell out $20k for your hobby items - they will cap it at a very low amount.

I had a brief talk with the insurance company before to get a quote about art/miniatures, and they said that it would cover basically the retail value, not the quality it’s painted unless it’s proven that it’s sold regularly at a higher price, which means they will try to Not cover well painted models, unless it was a winner of some prize with proof of purchase and such, so imo it’s not worth it unless you have loads models still in box or badly painted.

 Big Mac wrote:
I had a brief talk with the insurance company before to get a quote about art/miniatures, and they said that it would cover basically the retail value, not the quality it’s painted unless it’s proven that it’s sold regularly at a higher price, which means they will try to Not cover well painted models, unless it was a winner of some prize with proof of purchase and such, so imo it’s not worth it unless you have loads models still in box or badly painted.

Yeah, the insurance company is going to look at it this way:
25 boxes of Warhammer minis, brand new: worth MSRP
a Fully built, painted, and converted army: worth probably less than MSRP

While a hobbyist looks at it this way:
25 boxes of Warhammer minis, brand new: worth MSRP
a Fully built, painted, and converted army: whatever hundreds of hours of my own work are worth

If you want to insure the value of your own work, you will need a rider, and that's going to be expensive. If you had an army professionally painted, you at least have an invoice to show what you spent.

Given that homeowners insurance usually has a pretty large deductible, we're relaly talking about large collections. The OP talked about spending 20k on the hobby, that's going to be multiple large armies, paints, foam, etc. (Imagine the look on state farms face when I submit a claim for over $1000 just to cover my paints!)

Que?

If you have 20k pts of stuff lying around painted really well and it burns, surely it's better to get 20k pts of NIB stuff to replace it than to get... nothing.

Honestly?

Honestly honestly?

Don’t ask us. Chances are I know more about UK Insurance than any other Dakkanaut - but I still won’t give advice beyond ‘you’ll need to speak to someone with an intimate knowledge of the products available’.

This is especially true if your collection includes rarities and collectibles. Because their value is more subjective than replacing a seriously melted Land Raider, as those are still readily available.

Because such rarities and oddities may need to be individually declared and recorded. That will largely depend upon the risk appetite of the underwriter.

It’s never a bad idea to catalogue your goodies, be it a DVD collection, my 60” Ultra HD TV, a tumble dryer etc. Because if you’re ever unfortunate enough to need to file a claim, it’s likely they’ll ask for proof of ownership. If there’s been a fire? May not matter you stored your receipts safely and sensibly!

Get ye some proper professional advice. And shop around!

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Que?

If you have 20k pts of stuff lying around painted really well and it burns, surely it's better to get 20k pts of NIB stuff to replace it than to get... nothing.

Yes and no.

We considered adding my miniature collection to our insurance, but realised that if it were all lost, there's no way that I would go out and replace it all anyway... replacing it all with 30 years worth of stuff in boxes would just result in a house full of boxes. It doesn't replace the work put into it all, or give me the time to actually build it all again. Nor does it replace the stuff that's no longer available...

So rather than pushing our premiums up to cover it all, we just left it off. If the house burns down, then I'll replace the collection the same way I built it the first time around.

Alright, granted, I can see an argument that the excess/deductible, whatever you want to call it, might not make such a claim worthwhile, but isn't that also assuming that the collection is the only thing you're claiming for?

I have a really hard time imagining a scenario that would wreck $20k work of minis and hobby equipment (not 20k points, sorry) that wouldn't necessitate a much larger claim in any event. Like, that's an entire room wrecked at least. You're gonna claim for that too, so you're already paying the deductible...

Yeah warhammer models are very unlikely to be the sole target of a theft. In fact most thieves would rather avoid them; they are not fast nor easy to sell and don't resell for a vast sums of money. Far better to grab the DVD player, the TV, the laptop, tablet, etc....

The only time they tend to be stolen is when they are stolen in a case whilst out and around and often as not that's when the thief things they are getting something else (esp if they are in a dark professional looking case or even a gun-case).


From my limited experience insurance agents often just care about the big things. Often over £10K in value. So a warhammer collection worth over that and certainly into the £20K might well be the kind of thing that they'd want itemised, photographed and specifically mentioned in the insurance. It might not have all that much effect on the premium when rolled into all the other costs of your house and depending on the level of protection you go for. As noted above the best people to ask are those you're insuring/looking to insure with.




Now I have heard it said that some people prefer to take out specific insurance for some high ticket items separate to their household insurance. So that they feel more free to make a claim without it affecting their household insurance. I've heard that advised in photography forums where equipment can very quickly run into many thousands or even tens of thousands and yet still be able to fit into a single bag on the backseat of your car.
Again talk to the agent about this and about the repercussions of a claim or of theft off-site etc...

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Alright, granted, I can see an argument that the excess/deductible, whatever you want to call it, might not make such a claim worthwhile, but isn't that also assuming that the collection is the only thing you're claiming for?

I have a really hard time imagining a scenario that would wreck $20k work of minis and hobby equipment (not 20k points, sorry) that wouldn't necessitate a much larger claim in any event. Like, that's an entire room wrecked at least. You're gonna claim for that too, so you're already paying the deductible...

That comes down to the size of the collection. If you only have a small collection, then sure, it's going to make a negligible difference to your insurance.

Our insurance policy covers contents up to $20k. To include my miniatures, I would need to at least double that, which means higher premiums.

 Overread wrote:

From my limited experience insurance agents often just care about the big things. Often over £10K in value. So a warhammer collection worth over that and certainly into the £20K might well be the kind of thing that they'd want itemised, photographed and specifically mentioned in the insurance. It might not have all that much effect on the premium when rolled into all the other costs of your house and depending on the level of protection you go for. As noted above the best people to ask are those you're insuring/looking to insure with.




Now I have heard it said that some people prefer to take out specific insurance for some high ticket items separate to their household insurance. So that they feel more free to make a claim without it affecting their household insurance. I've heard that advised in photography forums where equipment can very quickly run into many thousands or even tens of thousands and yet still be able to fit into a single bag on the backseat of your car.
Again talk to the agent about this and about the repercussions of a claim or of theft off-site etc...

That's actually a good point. I have a Magic collection worth significantly more than $20K that's currently on my household insurance. Gonna look into insuring it separately.

Bran Dawri wrote:

 Overread wrote:

From my limited experience insurance agents often just care about the big things. Often over £10K in value. So a warhammer collection worth over that and certainly into the £20K might well be the kind of thing that they'd want itemised, photographed and specifically mentioned in the insurance. It might not have all that much effect on the premium when rolled into all the other costs of your house and depending on the level of protection you go for. As noted above the best people to ask are those you're insuring/looking to insure with.




Now I have heard it said that some people prefer to take out specific insurance for some high ticket items separate to their household insurance. So that they feel more free to make a claim without it affecting their household insurance. I've heard that advised in photography forums where equipment can very quickly run into many thousands or even tens of thousands and yet still be able to fit into a single bag on the backseat of your car.
Again talk to the agent about this and about the repercussions of a claim or of theft off-site etc...

That's actually a good point. I have a Magic collection worth significantly more than $20K that's currently on my household insurance. Gonna look into insuring it separately.

Yep the last thing you want is to have a high ticket item that could be easily stolen or lost and then not want to actually claim on the insurance you're paying for because its the household and its more there if the house burns down to cover everything within. Of course do talk to your insurance broker about this. Some household ones might have protected bands where you can claim within them without it affecting the premium etc.... So do research it, but its a good thing to keep in mind. I know in the past we've had fridges die and whilst they were worth £300 for insurance replacement, they were on household and we didn't claim (however we were fine as we got a £30 from market that replaced it and has done well ever since).

My contents cover has up to £50k and covers all individual items that are worth less than £500 each and also not bikes.

Anything above £500 that I want insured must be included. I have no individual warhammer sets/boxes that are worth that much, so I was just assuming I'd itemise it and put the current prices in. If I couldn't find it currently I'll get over it.

I'm also covered for contents that are in my possession outside the house up to 3500 with no single item worth more than 1500. So that covers things like cameras, but I guess covers my warhammer collection if I lose it out and about.

It's all new for old. I accidentally damaged my 8 year old TV while moving it and called them, they just sent me a gift card for the £250 replacement as TVs had a larger excess. No checks nothing and my premium didn't go up and I didn't have to pay them anything otherwise.