Camera Insurance

aureliaaurita

aureliaaurita

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Apr 24, 2007
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can anyone reccomend a company?

I need to be insured against theft and accidental damage both at home and when out

I know e & l do it but I won't go with them as I used to have horse insurance and they were absoloute crap at paying out.
 
Ring your house insurance company, they'll add your camera on to your policy. It will probably work out cheaper than taking out specialist camera insurance (which seems to be either targetted at professionals or E&L - with whom a friend of mine also had problems in 2004).
 
I don't have house insurance kully because a) we live in temporary accomodation at teh moment, only a few months left on the contract and we're gone. b) because of where we live it would be an absoloute fortune- high risk area. c) I don't own anything else worth insuring at the moment.
 
You might find that your credit card offers some kind of insurance on purchases, otherwise standalone cover tends to be quite expensive - if its anything like bikes it'll be about 10% of the value of the camera.

I'm not sure it's worth it - it seems to me that insurance is most useful if an uninsured loss would be a total disaster. If someone stole my camera (and it might not happen, even in south London ;) ) the worst that would happen is that I'd be without a camera for a month or two while I saved up for a new one.
 
If you insure your things via a rider on your homeowners policy, bear in mind that some companies have been known to raise premiums dramatically or even cancel after paying off the first claim on that homeowners policy.
 
wgerrard said:
If you insure your things via a rider on your homeowners policy, bear in mind that some companies have been known to raise premiums dramatically or even cancel after paying off the first claim on that homeowners policy.
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Since I had dropped my camera out of my case (I had not tightened the bottom screw when I changed film), and was flipped out of a canoe holding on to a camera, I looked in to insurance.

Inland Marine Policy, and I choose my home owner's policy according to their offer of such a policy.

I did have one company who ceased offering the insurance, and so I sent off all the minor claims I had been sitting on, so as not to burden the next company, who then dropped me for excessive claims against the first company a year later.

So I changed again.

So the usual insurance game applies, if you do not file any claims, they love you, if you do not file claims for a long time, you get a discount.

I still go through an agent for a home owner's policy, hoping the companies they work with offer a reasonable policy that covers me. If they cannot help me, then I will look for another agent, or take a more active role in researching the offerings via the net.

And, I have my watch on the same policy, they paid for a new crystal after I broke the unscratchable crystal.

Rates were 1% of stated value per year, all risk, I think they are now 1.5%.

Peace of mind when the airlines and others handle my equipment, or when I get on a boat. ;-)

I leave my equipment in my car at times, though I try to keep it out of sight.

Regards, John
 
JohnTF said:
I did have one company who ceased offering the insurance, and so I sent off all the minor claims I had been sitting on, so as not to burden the next company, who then dropped me for excessive claims against the first company a year later.

So I changed again.

So the usual insurance game applies, if you do not file any claims, they love you, if you do not file claims for a long time, you get a discount.
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insurance is not meant to be a maintenance contract. it doesn't make sense for an insurer to have clients who they have to pay out more than they receive and is not fair to the other individuals they are insuring.
 
FA Limited said:
insurance is not meant to be a maintenance contract. it doesn't make sense for an insurer to have clients who they have to pay out more than they receive and is not fair to the other individuals they are insuring.
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True, but...

The logic eventually falters. If it doesn't make sense for an insurer to have clients they have to pay out more than they receive in premiums, then only very small claims would be paid. The first test to receive a claim payment, then, would be to establish if the customer had paid in premiums totaling more than the claim.

Insurance works by spreading risk among a large pool of people, not by insurers declining to pay claims or canceling policies because they would lose money on an individual premiums paid vs. claim amount basis.

Insurers are not refusing to pay claims, canceling policies or boosting premiums because that is required to make a profit. They are doing that to make a greater profit.

Essentially the same game goes on in the health insurance industry in this country.

Back to cameras: People who have homeowners or renters insurance may already be covered, depending on the value of their gear. Call up and ask. My stuff is covered under a small rider. If you have a claim, you'll need to prove you owned the stuff in the first place. Again, ask what documentation your insurer would require. Many people take photos of everything. Store the photos and the documentation somewhere safe that isn't your home.

Question for those with large collections of images, prints, negatives, hard drives, etc: How do you insure those, and how do you assign a value?
 
I left my camera bag in a taxi once. Lost everything including a video camera. The household policy paid out for all of it in full and I still pay the same premiums I have always paid. The loss was in 2005.
 
FA Limited said:
insurance is not meant to be a maintenance contract. it doesn't make sense for an insurer to have clients who they have to pay out more than they receive and is not fair to the other individuals they are insuring.
Click to expand...

That is silly, they will always pay out more for those with losses than those without, it is the nature of insurance. The insurance companies often intimidate people into not filing any claims.

In my case, it was certainly not a question of maintenance, if I carried four or five cameras which were damaged during use, I would wait for further damage to combine the repairs rather than having the insurer get hit for small repairs one at a time with a hefty factory minimum repair price. I carried two Domke bags of cameras just for a wedding, and the same number for the summers abroad.

If the repair service finds nothing due to impact or other covered damage then the insurance company does not pay.

In this case, I did not think it proper to pass cameras from one insurance carrier to a new one with damage that occurred during the camera's tenure with a previous insurer. I had paid about $3000 in insurance, the repairs were less than $1000, plus they make money on the float.

I perhaps own more cameras than I should, the camera insurance has been more than my home owner's insurance for years, so they are still ahead, and I had zero claims with the company who later dropped me. ;-)


This year, I have had a CL, Xpan, M8 serviced, and a dozen lenses cleaned, none with an insurance claim. I certainly did not mean to imply insurance is an excuse for fraud.

And yes, someone finally hit the last undamaged fender on my car, so I will probably get the whole car painted as well, and out of pocket to keep the rates down.

If someone steals my M8, it is lost by a carrier, or I drop it, along with the half dozen lenses, I will file a claim, if I get a ding, I will wait for a bigger one.

Regards, John
 
pete63uk said:
I left my camera bag in a taxi once. Lost everything including a video camera. The household policy paid out for all of it in full and I still pay the same premiums I have always paid. The loss was in 2005.
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In Mexico many hotels are writing down the taxi numbers, and room numbers-- and there was one nice guy who tracked down a lady who left her purse in a taxi on the way to a restaurant in Vallarta last winter-- still, not an experiment I care to perform.

It is very easy to walk away from something as travel can be stressful enough, especially today.

Sorry you lost your bag, am surprised a normal home owner's policy covered it without a hit through your deductible, assume you had to back it up with a police report?

There is another odd out, that some policies exempt items found to be missing in annual inventories?

Regards, John
 
wgerrard said:
Insurance works by spreading risk among a large pool of people, not by insurers declining to pay claims or canceling policies because they would lose money on an individual premiums paid vs. claim amount basis.
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That's how Medicare trims cost, by refusing to pay 25% of all claims one way or another.
 
wgerrard said:
The logic eventually falters. If it doesn't make sense for an insurer to have clients they have to pay out more than they receive in premiums, then only very small claims would be paid. The first test to receive a claim payment, then, would be to establish if the customer had paid in premiums totaling more than the claim.
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sorry for the confusion, i meant my remarks only in the context of insurance as a maintenance contract and not for stuff like fire, car accidents, etc. in fact you can see health insurance also as a maintenance contract. the older you get, the more "maintenance" you need.

JohnTF said:
In my case, it was certainly not a question of maintenance, if I carried four or five cameras which were damaged during use, I would wait for further damage to combine the repairs rather than having the insurer get hit for small repairs one at a time with a hefty factory minimum repair price. I carried two Domke bags of cameras just for a wedding, and the same number for the summers abroad.

If the repair service finds nothing due to impact or other covered damage then the insurance company does not pay.

In this case, I did not think it proper to pass cameras from one insurance carrier to a new one with damage that occurred during the camera's tenure with a previous insurer. I had paid about $3000 in insurance, the repairs were less than $1000, plus they make money on the float.
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john, i'm not accusing you of insurance fraud, because if the insurer accepts the terms of the contract, then they should pay your claims.

but if you are filing claims on a fairly regular basis , then don't be surprised that you get bounced from insurer to insurer. although you think you've helped the insurer make money, you really haven't, because you're not accounting for the insurer's expenses, their profit margin and they still need to have a "contribution" from your premium to cover the pooling of monies for lack of a better word, "severe" claims like fire, home, car accidents.
 
JohnTF said:
... plus they make money on the float.
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Indeed. Sympathy for insurance companies should be tempered by the knowledge that most insureds never file a claim, yet pay premiums for years and years. Insurance companies do not give that money back. Instead, they invest it and pocket the return.
 
wgerrard said:
Indeed. Sympathy for insurance companies should be tempered by the knowledge that most insureds never file a claim, yet pay premiums for years and years. Insurance companies do not give that money back. Instead, they invest it and pocket the return.
Click to expand...

what you want insurers to give you your money back if you've had no claims? :confused:
 
I have a couple of friends who work in insurance. One has learned to be callous in face of what he does; the other is looking to leave the industry or 'racket', as he calls it. I do understand the mathematics behind the insurance game, and I have thought for years that it is in my best interest to have as little to do with insurance as possible. My wife is extremely cautious and thus over the course of our marriage has been very susceptible to the wooing of the insurance salesperson; we have had riders on this, that and those and even more: we thought we were bullet proof. This past year we have had a number of bad things happen to our home and some of our insured possessions. Bottom line for even my wife: the company has been happy to sell and take, but when it was their turn, they hid behind every single iota of contractual legalease to avoid coming clean. For us now I want only the basics...otherwise it has been a scam. My 2 cents.
 
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