Insurance for Coins

Hi Everyone,

I belong to the ANA and I know they have a vendor that can provide you with insurance on your coins. Does anyone have any experience with this? Is it worth it? Or only if you have rare coins? I appreciate any thoughts, comments, feedback, etc

Thanks!!!!

 

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I have not bought this insurance so I cannot speak from experience. My advice is to read the policy. There are several different levels of protection and tons of limitations. More protection = higher premiums.

 

Insurance ?

Before one buys a policy on anything in the insurance arena, you need to know how to read a policy and file a claim. A book written called "The claims game " by Atherton is a wealth of knowledge for things other then what it was orginally written for , Auto Claims. Reading a policy is paramount to being able to file a claim and get paid. If an item is not on the items list of property not covered, it is covered.
I think you get the jest of this. The book can be expensive , but one in a family is enough or a library might have one to lend. Once you get on to how the game works then you can shop with a more secure feeling of what you need and what it is worth.

 

I have a policy with the ANA affiliated insurer.
I don't do legalese very well so I didn't look into that closely.
But I compared their requirements and cost to my homeowner's insurance company.
The ANA policy cost was less than 4 times my homeowner's quote.
And a LOT fewer requirements.

I had already made a picture inventory of my collection.
I had my collection professionally appraised.
Then I burned a copy to a CD and gave it to my parents for storage.

Cost of insurance was under 0.4% of appraised value.
Keeps me happy.

 

My policy is with that vendor, Hugh Wood Inc. I haven't had any losses to collect on, but their rates are very competitive and a couple of dealers who have filed claims for losses have told me they were handled fairly.

 

insurance.........

that's good to know mark. i was curious though, does the insurance company require that photos be taken of each coin? and how would they base the worth of the coins if you should make a claim? do you have to have proof of what you paid, if you bought the coin? i wonder what price guide they would go by if you didn't have a receipt etc. sorry for all the questions but they popped in my head when i saw the thread. thanks.

steve

 

Steve, I don't know if the requirements are different for collectors than they are for dealers such as myself, but I am not required to take any photos. For claims, my guess is that the insurer would consider factors such as proof of the original cost, as well as replacement cost and current market conditions/values. Please don't apologize for asking questions - that is often a good way to get information.

 

When it comes to insuring anything of value I always tell people it is something you should really consider. If you live in a high crime area the constant giving away of what is in your home is not real smart. Try to remember that everything you show, tell or discribe to an insurance person goes into a computer file. This is normally available to many individuals in that organization. At times their computers may be compromised as has been recently done to other monitary organizations. Even a bank had such a problem recently.
Also remember that the people that work in an insurance office today may not have anything to do with that company tomorrow and may well walk away with your personal information.
I may be just cautious due to the area I live but we have way to many home invasions where the criminals have to much knowleged of what is expected to be there. Some have even confessed it was acquired from thier personal records but would not tell exactly where. Where else?

 

Value of Coins

Lots of good information!! Does the insurance company use a buying guide to determine value if they have to pay on a claim? The reason I'm asking is if I'm going to determine value to insure what guide do I use? Is it just the price I paid for each coin?

Thanks again!!!

 

You want to insure for replacement value.
If your collection is large enough, have it professionally appraised.
That's what I did and it cost $500. But well worth it.
If you don't think it's worth spending that kind of money, I'd suggest using the prices in Coin Values.
And I did a picture inventory of my better items and have stored a copy away from my home. No good if your inventory gets destroyed in a fire.

 

i have insurance through my homeowners policy. I talked with my agent, and i have a clause in my poilcy that allows for collections up to a percentage of the value of my home. So, untill my collection passes that mark, if anything happens i am covered. And at no additional cost. now if my collection passes what that clasue covers, then i would have to buy coverage for the whole part, not just the value thats above and beyond what the clause covers.

 

I looked into that with my homeowners policy.
In my case the poilcy would have allowed for collections up to a percentage of the value of the contents of my home, not the house itself.
And my collection is almost worth more than the contents of my house, so if something happened I'd lose either the collection or the furniture.
Plus to insure my collection separately would have cost about 4 times what I'm paying the ANA recommended insurer.
Homeowners' policies just aren't designed for such coverage.

 

I think my collection is large enough. Over 400 items but all fairly modern coins. I do have some precious metal coins silver and gold so I'm not sure if it would be worth it to get them appraised. If you get them appraised do you have to have them graded fiirst? Or is that part of the appraisal? Who do you go to have coins appraised?

Thanks again!!!

 

Modern items are easy enough for you to do. Just use Coin Values or auction results from eBay.
Bullion items you can also do yourself. Just use the current gold and silver spot when you are valuing them.

What you are paying for is the appraiser's time. The more work he has to do, the longer it will take.
My appraiser charged $100 an hour, so it took him 5 hours of work to get my collection evaluated from first look until final report.
And a high percentage of my coins are in slabs. So grading was mostly a matter of copying down what was on the slab and deciding if the coin was on the high or low end of that grade.
The non-slabbed coins were easy too. For instance, my Franklins are all UNC so the appraiser just had to see if there were any particularly good ones (FBLs.)

400 ungraded coins is going to take quite a while.

I just looked in the Yellow Pages under Coins and found one advertising as being an appraiser.

 

you collection must be bigger then mine With my coverage, it is a percentage of the amount of coverage i have for the house contents like your is. But the contents coverage is based on the value of my house. Maybe i just skipped a step in explaning. But if my house burns to the ground, and i lose everything. i get the full value of the coverage of my contents AND the value of the portion dedicated to the collectibles clause.

 

My insurance is essentially the same.
But the value of the contents plus the collection goes way pass the calculated percentage.

 

yeah, i have to watch that line for mine as well, once it reaches that percentage of the contents, i lose all coverage! luckily if my home value goes up, so does my coverage.. unfortuantely.. in these times, it seems the value of my collections is going up, and my house value is dropping

 

Well in that case I think you should build a house out of coins and paper money. Use the coins for the foundation and the paper money for the siding and shingles.....:hail:

 

I have insurance through Hugh Woods (ANA) also. I paid $50 for one year for $10,000 coverage. I checked into getting a rider on my homeowners, but I would have had to list each coin.

I chose Hugh Woods because it offered coverage and still allowed me to be lazy.

The only thing you have to register is if any one piece is over $1000. Other than that all you have to do is have an inventory. I keep most of my collection in binders, so I just scan each page of each binder and upload the photos to a blog (I assume that if my house gets burgled or destroyed, my computer and my coins will both be gone). Since I have the scans of the coins, I'll be able to look at them for condition if I need to. I don't really need to keep an updated list of the value of my collection. If I ever need to make a claim I'll do that based off of the scans.