Your welcome. I started using Collectibles Insurance some 20 years ago mostly for Antique Clocks i restore. Don’t have to send an inventory unless you have a loss and they cover items in transit to shows and back. They understand the collectors needs.
Bob
Oh, and as an aside, along with taking pictures of everything, KEEP your receipts. We have a fireproof filing cabinet that we keep our important documents in. Not only is it invaluable in an insurance claim, it’d come in REAL handy come tax time; not having documentation to justify your tax deductions if you’re ever audited. They say to keep your documentation for 7 years; whenever I make a purchase, or pay a medical expense, the paperwork gets scanned and saved in PDF format. I do a weekly backup and the DVDs get swapped out at our safe deposit box at the bank. Sometimes, being OCD comes in handy, my wife likes to say.
Soooooooooo, another clock collector/model railroader huh? The two just seem to go togther some how, probably has a lot to do with the tools being able to be used for both of the or just a fasination with “gears”. I’ve had to trim my collection back quite a bit since we moved to our current house. I had “my” collection and then when my Dad died I inherited his collection so I literally had them lined up in rows in the basement and had the wall clocks “stacked”, and this was after I had the upstairs completely full of all of the “keepers”. What’s your main interest? Anything in particular?
Mark
WGAS
Mark brings up a very good point. Most thefts are from other model railroaders.
A fire is more likely to decimate your collection (remember John Allen?), especially wiring. Alot of older homes have cloth insulation on the wiring and the newer homes have shoddy wiring put in by unskilled workers (aprentices).
As for leaving y
Our Model Railroad Club experienced a fire back in 1990. We lost everything and had no insurance - not because we were not going to get any but had just moved and needed a show (to have enough money) to purchase it (we do have it now BTW)!
But my point is that each of the members in the Club also lost items in the fire. As we had no idea what to do after the fire about any coverage - I ask my Home Owner Insurance agent about if there was anything that could be done (as the members were just going to write all of their loss off)!
The agent stated that my policy covered OFF Premises items and I was able to receive a payment of my losses to my personal property (trains and tools) that were lost in the fire at the Club.
It was rated at 10% of the Content Policy Value so it covered everything I lost and I only have to give them an inventory of the items!
What I am driving at here is - if you have a realy good Insurance Agent - they may have coverage on your Contents and you may not even know it - I had no club that I would be able to get compinsated for my loss.
Each Insurance Carrier is different and each of our members had to check with each of their own policies but I believe most all were able to recover some money for their losses!
When I had my current layout well along - I had my current Insurance Agent out to our new house to make sure our policy was up to date and I then had her go down into the basement to look my layout over.
Once she recovered from the shear size of the layout -
I looked her in the eye and ask - is this covered with my current policy?
She ask if the stuff was collectable and I stated NO - just regular production trains and that I had an inventory & pictures of it all.
She said YEP - Its covered!
BOB H - Clarion, PA
Let’s see. A blue collar husband and wife in their mid fifties both working full time bringing in a $100,000.00 a year. After 35 years of work they have earned $3,500,000.00. Then throw in some inherited items. Why is it hard to imagine having $500,000.00 worth of possessions at this point in their lives???
&nbs
As far as insurance paying off on a claim, that’s why I have the rider added to my policy and why my agent came out and documented everything on my layout and all the equipment I owned and why every 3 months I have to send in a updated list of anything I bought along with copies of the receipts. It’s setup as replacement value not just a static value.
I think we have covered this topic pretty well, we all have our own opinion on what or how to cover the loss of our layout if something goes horribly bad and we lose everything. The amount of coverage we have is a personal choice and should not be scoffed at by anyone. Remember opinions are like a__h__es everyone has one and no opinion is any better than any other. We are here to share information and help each other to better and further our hobby in a positive way.
Ok my 5 mins on the soap box is over.
Ray