Insurance

[d-riemer]

I talked to my home-owners insurance company (PEMCO) about insurance on an order-and-medal collection and received the following answer:

Because orders and medals are not specifically listed in the insurance contract with a coverage limit (it seems the field is not well enough established as a collectible), the collection is treated just like general household goods and the fairly high limit for household content, which is part of the home-owners insurance, applies. This means, no extra fee is charged for the collection.

However in case of a loss, the value must be proven by an inventory with prices either established by purchase receipts or dealer appraisals.

I wonder whether Paul McDaniel will on request add an appraised value to his certificate or whether any dealer on this forum has established an appraisal process.

[Ed Maier]

Red Star,

Please see the link in my message in this thread, severtal posts up. This company insures only collectables, and you do not need an appraisal to deal with them. I know several people who use them (including myself) and I've never heard a negitive comment about this company.

Hope this helps,
Ed Maier

[redstar_co]

helps a great dela. Thank you for moving me to the right direction

[new world]

Ed,

Have you talked to anyone who was unfortunate enough to submit claims to this insurance company?

I am curious how they deal in case of actual loss of the collection.

Best,
William

[Ed Maier]

William,

I've do not know anyone personally with a claim, but I was speaking to someone a year or so ago, who said he had a claim and it was pain free.

They are a national company with a good reputation. They used to be the antional insurance compnay for the nation wide stamp collector association (something like OMSA for stamps), so they have a track record.

I hope that this helps,
Ed M.

[vikingraider1]

Just spoke to the company mentioned in the UK and tye said the follwoing:

Subject to no prior claims and a satisfactory proposal form I can indicate a premium of £52.50 all inclusive.
You do not need to authenticate the items as we would not ask for a valuation certificate. You would need to list any single item worth £1,000 or more. You would also need to keep a record of the collection so that you could quantify your loss in the event of a claim.


I think that is pretty reasonable but the real crunch comes when you make a claim.

[otlichnik]

First I must warn that Dietrich's experience does not apply to all general insurance programs. In fact, most I looked at have limits on medals, coins and stamps and you need special coverage if these collections go over $1000 or so.

The only thing that seems to fall outside these limits, at least in my policy, is cloth. I asked numerous times about my uniform and banner collection. They said they count as general household as long as they are on the general inventory. I re-checked as we are talking of uniforms worth up to $2500 each but they said fine.

As for appraisals, no professional appraiser knows rare Soviet uniforms so I had a forum member, also a major dealer and at the time collector of high end uniforms, do the appraisal which the company accepted. I also took digtal photos of everything. It also heps to keep bills and receipts.

As for "anything, anywhere" insurers I use Clements International of Washington DC as does half of the global diplomatic corps. Most of my collection is in storage in Canada covered by the Canadian goverment but my household contents here in Bosnia and my car insurance in Bosnia are by Clements. They just require an inventory and do a rate based on your total declared value.

Clements are at http://www.clements.com

Shawn

[matteti]

My insurance company asks for an "expert appraisal" and they told me that for a soviet items collection, an experience dealer or other expert would do. In my collection, I have a bit of everything ranging from orders and medals, to badges and pins, paper documents, gramota, photos, bonds, loto tickets, etc... I also have several common uniforms, banners, hats, etc..

Nothing is really very expensive by itself, but all those low value items put together amount to a good sum to me. Currently, it is only partially covered and I would not like to lose it all in a fire and be left with no money to re-build a collection that took over 6 years to build.

It would be difficult to obtain appraisal for such big number of items and I am thinking I might be better to get a different insurer for the collection than for the house, one that doesn't require an appraisal.

Since this thread started, have anyone had any experience good or bad with any insurer mentionned here Hugh Wood LTD or Collectible Insurance Services LLC or another one?

I would like to hear you in order to make my decision as to what and who to choose.

Thanks in advance.