Valuing Your Collection for Insurance Purposes

I'd appraise it myself and tell them where to put the lump. You do have a right to be made whole by the insurer. Now I'm not saying they are right or wrong, but the only way they get away with lowballing you - is if you accept it.

I do recommend keeping a summary spreadsheet of what you have - and the values associated with your collection. And a well built safe...and a gun.

 

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Collectible Insurance Services offered through ANA did not require an appraisal. Insuring for retail value is a good idea IMO, if you decide to secure a policy. Their policies are tailored for collectibles and hobbyist more so than homeowner's insurance (ryder, endorsement or separate policy) where they rarely insure collections, and often offer it as an accommodation. Regardless, you will likely need to educate most individuals at the time of a loss to increase your chances of an amicable settlement. If you have a fire a safe may not prevent items within from melting due to extreme heat and the bank won't cover stuff in a safe deposit box. Homeowner's insurance usually offers limited coverage for collectibles.

 

Once I joined ANA, Hugh Wood has been easy to work with and offers very reasonable rates. One bit of advice I got is to keep an inventory of what you have but not just on your home computer. Put it on a cloud or email it to yourself so that if your home computer is also destroyed or taken along with your collection you could still access the spreadsheet from another location.

 

When I took out my policy from Hugh Wood as long as I normally keep my coins in a bank vault or home safe then I am charged 0.25% of the value of the collection as a yearly premium. I have to individually list any singles or sets that are valued at or in excess of $10,000 each. but since I don't own any of these the company doesn't even know what individual coins I own. My self-appraisal suffices and I now add any new additions at the first of the following year.

Even when a portion of my collection walked off in 2001 no individual inventory was required to file a claim. All they needed was a copy of the police report and my notarized written statement that coins of X value had been stolen and a check for the total of my reported loss was in my mailbox less than a month later.

 

And that is when you call your insurance agent first. When this happened to me(hit by drunk driver and a police officer saw it happen) - the other insurance company called me and told me the same thing on my car. Pissed me off to no end - I called my insurance agent and told him. He handled from then on - and I not only got a fair price, but they paid for the new tires, the fancy rims I put on it and the new stereo. Let me get in my way back machine - this was 1984 or so.

On my coins I did not have to have an appraisal I just had to send them a list. I need to contact them and see if I need to update that list. And about 2 years ago I hit a certain mark for the insurance company - and they knocked about 30% off of all of the policies for home owners insurance. It does have a 40k or 50k limit on it.

 

First of all, Insurance company's are NOT your friends & are not in the business to take care of you and your stuff.Their in the making $$ business (bookie's!) Basically you are placing a bet that you pay monthly or yearly for something you hope you will never have to use,and frankly,so do they.The spread depends on the value you pick for your collection,the more you say the collection is worth the more your premium will be,they hope you go high,so they can charge you more.They don't tell you that that's not how the value will estimated when you file a claim.
When has anyone ever got what something was really worth from their insurance company. They don't give a crap about what you think something is worth after it's gone.

 

My former home owner insurance agent used to claim that every robbery happened two times. First you have the actual theft and then you have the amount stolen turned into the police and insurance company with what you say the value is.

Unfortunately for my checkbook, my Mama raised me better than that.

 

That is the information I have been looking for for a long time, how well they responded to claims. Yours is the first report I've seen of how they actually handled a claim for stolen coins. I must say I am pleasantly surprised at how well it went. I have always thought well of Hugh Woods, and that is another BIG step upward for them.

 

PITA had a grey wolf husky mix named that. Great dog.