Okay, so I’m a teen living with my parents in a reasonably new (1990s) home in a good part of town. While rain has been strong enough to put several feet of water in neighbors’ houses, our basement has never had more than a drop of water. My only worry would be fire. I have no money for special layout insurance, and I’ve heard that most homeowner’s policies don’t cover most layouts. Any advice? I’ve thought of the NMRA insurance program, which I MAY be able to afford with money from my paid internship this summer, but then it’ll run out and I’ll be basically broke as usual with no money to renew. Useless unless our house burns down within a 7 month period.
Any advice? Let it slide and don’t play with matches? Create an inventory for the insurance companies just in case?
How much $$$ do you think you’re going to be investing in this layout? If your’e a typical teen - or like I was, for sure - you’re not going to have an overage of funds, regardless! [:D]
Check to see if your parents insurance on the house will do a rider for a small charge. Also, check the current policy with your insurance agent, unless you have high value items your trains may already be covered as well as structures, power packs, etc. Take pictures of everything and store somewhere other than the house.
It would be typical that your policy covers all of your possessions unless they constitute a ‘collection’ of a unique and/or large and excessively costly-to-replace nature. They don’t want to be saddled with a rare collection worth $2M on an insurance policy meant to pay out about $1M for home and contents.
So, if you have four or six engines, documented, totalling $1300 or so, I don’t see that you need to do any more than itemize them for inventory purposes as you would some power tools. But, if you have 15 engines, and some brass ones worth $1200 each, they may not be willing to pay up in the event of a fire or theft.
So, you seek a letter from the insurer stating that the few you have would be covered, or that they require you to have a rider of some kind, or co-insurance. Either way, in writing, and do as you think to be prudent with the letter’s meaning.
Thanks for the help guys. The layout has probably between $1000 and $2000 invested in it total, with no big budget items - probably the singular most expensive item is my Digitrax Zephyr. All locomotives are just Proto 2000 geeps with silent decoders, probably valuing $100 or less each.
So if I document the layout as a whole (benchwork was pretty darn expensive!), document the more expensive items like locomotives, DCC system, etc, and talk to the insurers, I should be fine? Would the insurance pay for just the stuff I documented in writing (i.e. not a photo of the yard full of cars) or would they pay for part of or the rest of my losses?
What you need is simply a rider on your parents home owners policy. which is something people like myself who seem to collect things like firearms antiques, model trains, railroad lanterns just to name a few are required to do. Home owners usually only allocates a minimal amount for things like collections, hobby stuff etc. What they feel is a suitable amount. Yeah in a pigs eye. But look at what you have invested I wouldn’t spend the extra money on it just make sure you keep all of your receipts in a fireproof safe or off premises in something like a safe deposit box. You’ll be spending a substantial part of your investment on insurance and have nothing to show for it. When I had to deal with the insurance company a few years back I didn’t have a rider to cover my trains and I had to produce receipts and provide estimates for cleaning of items and repair. When you put a rider on your policy you say my collection is worth so much and ave to prove it. You just can’t insure your stuff for a million dollars without just cause. After you come up with an acceptable appraisal they will give you a price and trust me their not shy about charging you.
On the good advice of my State Farm insurance agent, who is also a friend, modeler, and someone I trust, I had a rider policy added to my homeowners specifically for the railroad. I keep Excel databases on all the equipment, including date purchased, price paid, extra items added (couplers, detail parts, etc). I also have an online data base with photos and equipment rosters, and my insurance agent has access to that data base. He is confident that we have done about all needed to insure the property even though it costs me extra on my policy. The policy states the rider and information on it. It doesn’t add all that much to the total cost and I sleep better. The data bases are updated on a regular basis.
I also have two laptops in addition to my desk top, and one is always with me. They all contain updated copies. A hard copy is filed with my agent, I update it on a regular basis, and a copy is put in the lock box quarterly. That should do it.
Keep a copy of any equipment list and photos somewhere else besides your home. If the home burns to the ground and the list is stored on a computer in the house you will be out of luck. Best place would be a safe deposit box at a bank.
I use a program called “RRTrains 2000”. You can download it online from RRTrains 2000 With this program, you can enter the above information for each piece of equipment, as well as pictures of the equipment. With the setup parameters, you can configure it to save a backup file of the database.
Insurance (medical insurance is usually insurance combined with a pre-paid routine treatment plan) is to prevent the disasters of life from financially ruining you. Somebody else (the insurance company) makes a profit and if you are in the lucky majority, and the stated risk doesn’t happen in the near future. If you self-insure (don’t buy insurance), you pocket the profit the insurance company would have made when things go well.
By that line of reasoning, a hobby is seldom worth insuring. The loss of your hobby items to a disaster should not be financially ruining you.
Another reason not to bother is that your hobby time is worth nothing in the eyes of the insurance company or the tax man. The labor you put into weathering or painting or building your layout cannot be recovered. Only the costs of replacing what is replaceable from the market place will be considered.
And consider that with limited run production, it will be very difficult for any insurer to restore you to where you were (what insurance is supposed to do). The locomotives you prize now will probably not be available for purchase new at a later date. Substitutions are going to have to be made. And would you really do things exactly the same again?
What is your most valuable asset? I dare say in your case, it is your future income stream from your work. Loss of that would ruin your life. So disability and liability and life (for your loved ones, not for you) and possibly identity theft insurances would be the most important to consider funding.
What I am saying is based on what Dave Ramsey teaches. I’m a convert to his way of thinking of things financial, even at my advanced age.
I recently had a water supply problem in my house. The water came through the ceiling from upstairs. I have State Farm Insurance. It is the first time I had real water in the river on my layout. I had about 6 or so craftsman buildings get soaked, ate up some of the plaster roads (WS plaster) some trees from various companies and just general havoc. Of course I had about $10,000 other damage done to the carpeting, wall board, ceilings…in the house also.
State farm paid me for each of the buildings, and all of the materials necessary to replace the buildings. They even paid me for the paint, and I had several Model Railroader, MRC etc. magazines, probably 20 of them, at whatever the subscription price was. My home owners insurance paid me for everything I itemized on the train layout that was ruined, except for the labor that I had estimated. I have no complaints, and I guess they wouldn’t pay for me to have the fun of building the kits, but what price for the joy of working on the railroad, heck I should have to pay them. They paid the replacement cost of the kits, as I have replacement cost insurance. I only had a few engines get very wet, but they are plastic models, and with some proper drying it was no problem. I just performed a normal service. Fortunatly none of the sound engines with holes in top received any “rainfall” But let me tell you Campbell shingles and wood buildings do not hold up well in water. The shingles rinse right off. They paid me right around $1200, and I am sure every insurance policy is different, but your helpful insurance agent should be able to tell you the limits of your parents policy.
Now I have a scrap box with bad buildings, if the insurance co wants them I will give them up, but they should otherwise provide window and door castings, and possibly fodder for a land fill on the layout. Maybe a building recyclling business, who knows.
So all in all, with my (relatively) small investment, don’t buy insurance because it won’t pay for itself, and instead document everything and if worst comes to worst, try my luck with the insurers after the fact like Paul did with great results.
As others have mentioned - You can get a ‘rider’ attached to their homeowners policy. Now, your parents they may have 100% ‘replacement’ insurance where an item is replaced or they pay you the value of it. One of the problems is if the item is 10 years old, they pay you based on the fact that it is 10 years old and is worn out! Now try to explain that rare brass engine is worth more than you paid for it! I have ‘replacement’ insurance on my house(not much extra). I also have a file with all of my models(some now with pictures) to prove what I have. My State Farm agent has no problem with it(and visits to go over my policy - err, see the model trains)! Another thing to consider is what is the ‘deductable’? Mine is $500 right now - I pay the first $500 of each claim. Some homeowners policies have a $1000 deductible(which I may be going to as the premiums are a lot lower).
Tyler, have your parents make sure it is a full Replacement policy not what it is worth now policy! I got bite by that clause 30 years ago. A friend of mine was my agent, he did not proof read the policy because he was late to my house closing.
Few years later some thefts decide to shop at Ken Mart. Stole a then $1500.00 stereo, my Gibson Less Paul Look A Like and all the Christmas presents. I remember I only got $342.00 on the stereo.
In a twisted sort of way I got the last laugh on the thefts. They stole the Gibson Look a like worth $90.00 left the Gibson 335 worth $1500.00 They all so took the stereo speakers, CD player that was broken and the Adcom Preamp but left the power amp! So the stereo would not work either!
Far as a safe places to keep your recites and and pictures. Get a couple of thumb drives. I keep one on my key chain and one in my car to be safe.
Looking again at what I have, I don’t think it is enough for a rider to pay for itself (unless the house burns down this summer) and there might not be much left after the deductible for the insurance company to pay. So I’ll just keep some records(out of the house!) and stay away from the matches. [;)] Thanks for all your help everyone.