Insurance
26 Sep, 2023
2023-9-26 7:48:09 PM UTC
2023-9-26 7:48:09 PM UTC
I got my renewal document today for my house and contents insurance.
I normally just let it continue, but realized I had not checked it for years, and it is completely not fit for purpose.
So my question is, what do people do about insuring their book collections?
Do you have it as part of your general home insurance, or do you use a specialist company to insure them?
Also do you recommend any insurers for book collections, if you mention the company, can you also state what country you are in, so that members know if it may be relevant to them.
A minefield, but I think it is important that this is done properly.
I normally just let it continue, but realized I had not checked it for years, and it is completely not fit for purpose.
So my question is, what do people do about insuring their book collections?
Do you have it as part of your general home insurance, or do you use a specialist company to insure them?
Also do you recommend any insurers for book collections, if you mention the company, can you also state what country you are in, so that members know if it may be relevant to them.
A minefield, but I think it is important that this is done properly.
Geographical differences will probably render this useless but we just updated ours and the insurer has accepted our valuation on all of our collections. In fact the lady put an upper limit on the value and as we had fairly detailed records of our books/vinyl/posters/movie collections, etc, the number was in the low 7 figures and will cover all of our costs should we need to replace anything. If the house burned down and we lost everything, they will cover it all at the upper limit agreed.
I expect that if you go for a book specific insurance it will likely add some cost onto the price (we found this out looking at an insurer for our vinyl and poster collections), so if you can negotiate a higher insured figure across all your items and the insurer will accept your valuation on replacing anything damaged, then that is how I would try to move forward.
I expect that if you go for a book specific insurance it will likely add some cost onto the price (we found this out looking at an insurer for our vinyl and poster collections), so if you can negotiate a higher insured figure across all your items and the insurer will accept your valuation on replacing anything damaged, then that is how I would try to move forward.
I went through this process a few years ago, when I changed homeowners insurance companies and flood insurance (here in Houston, flooding is a bigger risk than your house burning down).
Here's what I found, and my process.
Your standard homeowners insurance usually either does not cover collectibles or imposes a low limit on the coverage and it is generally wise to arrange for separate coverage of them. It's best to document your collection and have it appraised before insuring it. If you're still adding items like many of us here, periodically evaluate your insurance plan to make sure your coverage is adequate.
So basically, if you think that your collection might be worth more than you are covered for, you will have to obtain separate insurance specific to the collection. Your current insurer may be able to add a rider to your policy to specifically insure the collection. If not, you will need to seek out a specialty insurer. Regardless of how you are insuring your collection, you must be able to prove what you own and what it was worth to eventually process a claim. Therefore, the first step is to create a list of your collection and document the date purchased, amount paid, and any other important details. When comparing insurance policies, make sure they cover a wide range of losses, such as fire, theft, etc... Some policies only cover losses in your home, so, if you attend shows or otherwise travel with your collection, make sure your policy covers you wherever you are.
Here's what I found, and my process.
Your standard homeowners insurance usually either does not cover collectibles or imposes a low limit on the coverage and it is generally wise to arrange for separate coverage of them. It's best to document your collection and have it appraised before insuring it. If you're still adding items like many of us here, periodically evaluate your insurance plan to make sure your coverage is adequate.
So basically, if you think that your collection might be worth more than you are covered for, you will have to obtain separate insurance specific to the collection. Your current insurer may be able to add a rider to your policy to specifically insure the collection. If not, you will need to seek out a specialty insurer. Regardless of how you are insuring your collection, you must be able to prove what you own and what it was worth to eventually process a claim. Therefore, the first step is to create a list of your collection and document the date purchased, amount paid, and any other important details. When comparing insurance policies, make sure they cover a wide range of losses, such as fire, theft, etc... Some policies only cover losses in your home, so, if you attend shows or otherwise travel with your collection, make sure your policy covers you wherever you are.
My book collection is not valuable enough to exceed my homeowners' insurance contents coverage so mine are covered under my home policy. But I do have other items insured separately - specifically, certain items of jewelry - and I also handled contents insurance claims for a few years. Depending on your insurer, you could ask if they would add separate coverage for your books for an add-on to your premium amount. For many standard homeowners policies this process sometimes becomes way more complicated than it needs to be, or the insurer will often say they won't do it. Sometimes you can buy a special contents rider that gives you extra contents coverage up to a certain amount. Sometimes it will specify what the coverage is for, sometimes it will just be an extra amount over your existing contents coverage.
Additionally, if you have any part of your collection stored in locations other than your house, those parts won't be covered by the homeowner's policy. So it's definitely a good idea to get separate coverage if you have high value items (or high value in aggregate) that are not at your house. The issue you may run into with smaller insurers who provide specialty coverage is that a lot of time they want valuations to be provided before issuing coverage. This is easy with things like cars or jewelry where such valuations are rather commonly issued but it's a different story with books. On the other hand, specialty insurers are also more flexible with that sort of thing and are usually more willing to work with you than a large company writing homeowners policies in my experience. I've never used specialty book insurers and certainly don't have experience with any U.K. insurers other than Lloyds so I couldn't make a recommendation, but hopefully some folks will have some good recommendations.
One thing to note, and this is likely not a problem for you since you have many excellent photos of your books, but just as a general best-practice tip for everyone: take photos/videos of your collection and just save them digitally (and backed up to a cloud or the internet). Your basic contents coverage may be plenty high enough to cover your collection, but if you have valuable books that are destroyed and want fair replacement value for them (i.e. what it would cost you to replace the item by getting it off eBay, for example), the insurer is going to want proof that you actually had a first edition second impression of The Hobbit and won't just take your word for it. If you buy items from auction or eBay, save the electronic receipts and confirmation emails. They will come in handy if you have a devastating loss. And if you're ever evacuating for a natural disaster (e.g. hurricane, wildfire, etc.) take 2 minutes and walk around your house slowly with your smartphone videoing all your possessions so you have a record of what was in your house before it all gets potentially destroyed. Not to be dramatic, but it's far easier to succeed with a claim when you have documentation of what you owned, even a simple smartphone video.
Additionally, if you have any part of your collection stored in locations other than your house, those parts won't be covered by the homeowner's policy. So it's definitely a good idea to get separate coverage if you have high value items (or high value in aggregate) that are not at your house. The issue you may run into with smaller insurers who provide specialty coverage is that a lot of time they want valuations to be provided before issuing coverage. This is easy with things like cars or jewelry where such valuations are rather commonly issued but it's a different story with books. On the other hand, specialty insurers are also more flexible with that sort of thing and are usually more willing to work with you than a large company writing homeowners policies in my experience. I've never used specialty book insurers and certainly don't have experience with any U.K. insurers other than Lloyds so I couldn't make a recommendation, but hopefully some folks will have some good recommendations.
One thing to note, and this is likely not a problem for you since you have many excellent photos of your books, but just as a general best-practice tip for everyone: take photos/videos of your collection and just save them digitally (and backed up to a cloud or the internet). Your basic contents coverage may be plenty high enough to cover your collection, but if you have valuable books that are destroyed and want fair replacement value for them (i.e. what it would cost you to replace the item by getting it off eBay, for example), the insurer is going to want proof that you actually had a first edition second impression of The Hobbit and won't just take your word for it. If you buy items from auction or eBay, save the electronic receipts and confirmation emails. They will come in handy if you have a devastating loss. And if you're ever evacuating for a natural disaster (e.g. hurricane, wildfire, etc.) take 2 minutes and walk around your house slowly with your smartphone videoing all your possessions so you have a record of what was in your house before it all gets potentially destroyed. Not to be dramatic, but it's far easier to succeed with a claim when you have documentation of what you owned, even a simple smartphone video.
onthetrail wrote:
Geographical differences will probably render this useless but we just updated ours and the insurer has accepted our valuation on all of our collections. In fact the lady put an upper limit on the value and as we had fairly detailed records of our books/vinyl/posters/movie collections, etc, the number was in the low 7 figures and will cover all of our costs should we need to replace anything. If the house burned down and we lost everything, they will cover it all at the upper limit agreed.
I expect that if you go for a book specific insurance it will likely add some cost onto the price (we found this out looking at an insurer for our vinyl and poster collections), so if you can negotiate a higher insured figure across all your items and the insurer will accept your valuation on replacing anything damaged, then that is how I would try to move forward.
Yes this is generally a good strategy - if you can get a higher contents coverage that satisfies you in terms of the upper limit of value, that is the simplest route. But again would only cover contents on your insured property.
Just dropping this decade-old thread back in here from when we last discussed this topic, in case there is anything helpful still there.
https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... ost_id=8604#forumpost8604
https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/n ... ost_id=8604#forumpost8604
Tuor son of Huor wrote:
onthetrail wrote:
Geographical differences will probably render this useless but we just updated ours and the insurer has accepted our valuation on all of our collections. In fact the lady put an upper limit on the value and as we had fairly detailed records of our books/vinyl/posters/movie collections, etc, the number was in the low 7 figures and will cover all of our costs should we need to replace anything. If the house burned down and we lost everything, they will cover it all at the upper limit agreed.
I expect that if you go for a book specific insurance it will likely add some cost onto the price (we found this out looking at an insurer for our vinyl and poster collections), so if you can negotiate a higher insured figure across all your items and the insurer will accept your valuation on replacing anything damaged, then that is how I would try to move forward.
Yes this is generally a good strategy - if you can get a higher contents coverage that satisfies you in terms of the upper limit of value, that is the simplest route. But again would only cover contents on your insured property.
That's a really important point and we may have been lucky to secure such favourable terms. If individual items plus our entire contents were not covered then we would have had to go the direction of getting specific insurance.
The reason we spoke with a broker about the entire contents in one policy was because we have 5 specific collecting types that would all otherwise need specific insurance. We ended up with a brilliant deal.
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