House insurance for your records

[Rich-M]

Just been onto house insurance for a renewal. Asked them about my record collection and what would happen if the house burned down or my records got stolen (million to one chance i know but i asked anyway)

They said i need to list them all take a few photos of them to prove how many i had. and get a valuation for them ????

How do you value a collection of over 10000 records ??? do i use discogs current prices or prices when they were bought new.

have any of you guys got insurance for your tunes. They said decks and mixer stereo equipment etc wouldnt be a problem. They'd just replace old for new.

How do you guys go about insurance etc ???

 

[djperkins]

You can start to list them with the appropriate grade on Discogs...in your collection, you'll have a good valuation guide and be able to borrow some library pics

 

[siman91]

Right I work with insurance companies and know a lot of their little tricks.

1 use Discogs as this is a great tool for drawing together a list of your records. Include doubles etc.
2 if you have any truely valuable records (no offence but unlikely as I mean £1,000 +) then have them independently valued. You may want to do this with £100+ records but valuations cost unless you know a dealer willing to sign a valuation for a beer.
3 take your estimated valuation from ogs and dealer and ADD this to your normal CONTENTS sum insured. A lot of policies insure for ie £40,000 which may not even cover an average 3 bed house.
4, ensure your insurer is happy that the records are insured as 10,000 individual items as a lot of policies allow for a collection ie 1 collective item and then apply the maximum value for 1 item rule within the policy. Make sure they do not add a policy excess against each record though.
5, ensure they are happy with sorage arrangements ie house, garage, shed etc
6 keep the insurer up to date, if you buy another collection then let them know the increased value and numbers.

Insurers are generally happy with records as they are individually small value items which collectively are hard to steal and to be honest are not very desirable like tv's, CDs and computers etc. I have dealt with 3 fires with record collections involved, all house (I mean that in the overall genre) , 1 the guy was absolutely gutted as the insurer settled at a few £100 which may have been fair but he argued the memories meant £ more, to a semi pro dj who lost the lot to smoke damage, £1000's but did not really give a dam as they were tools of the trade and therefore would be replaced! The most devastating was a model train collector who had one of the most respected collections in the uk with nearly everything new boxed etc. He estimated he had over £250,000 worth however all contents were insured for £50,000 meaning he got £50,000 for all contents including his collection, clothes, furniture etc etc etc. big lesson learned the hard way.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

S