Does anyone have suggestions on getting camera insurance???? the companies that offer it and so on.....

-- eric (grigoriane@yahoo.com), May 05, 2001

Answers

I have a rider on my home owners insurance for full replacement value of most of my equipment with State Farm. That seemed to be the least expensive way of dealing with loss due to fire, theft, etc. Once a year I update it.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), May 05, 2001.

I used to have a policy that I don't buy insurance for anything that i can afford to loose (a camera and car would fall under this, a house wouldn't)... but I recently discovered that my State Farm agent will cover my camera gear under a PAF (Personal Article Floater) for just 1.25% the cost of the equipment per year. So, for a new Leica M6 with a 50/1.4 = $3000, you get insurance for just $37.50 per year. This insurance is amazing, it not only covers theft (anywhere in the world no matter what) but also my own stupidity (dropping the camera) and regular stuff (i.e. if the rangefinder needs to be realigned they will fix it). I really don't see how they can make money on this stuff, but then again, they make money on my family because we have other types of insurance (like mandatory car insurance) with them. I think this insurance is definitely worth it if you travel much, it gives you peace of mind. You can leave the camera in a hotel room, and go out for the day without worrying about a maid taking it, or somebody breaking in to the room (a big concern in hotels in poorer areas of the world). It is probably a good idea to get it even if you don't travel, simply because it is better than a passport warrenty and costs less (because you can buy gray market camera equipment).

-- Matthew Geddert (geddert@yahoo.com), May 05, 2001.

I also have my gear covered with a Personal Articles Floater that I added to my State Farm Homeowner's Policy. It's a great deal!

-- KL Prager (www.pragerproperties@worldnet.att.net), May 05, 2001.

matthew, let me see if i understand this...is state farm your home owners insurance?!? and is the camera coverage just an extra option on your home owners insurance? I don't have a home so i probably need to get coverage from a different policy....do you or anyone else know of any company that offers this kind of coverage. Coverage that's just for camera, or personal property.

-- Eric (grigoriane@yahoo.com), May 05, 2001.

I looked into insirance years ago before I owned a home and had home owners insurance. There are seperate plans available, but the best deal was for renters insurance. You can look into that, and then you add the camera equipment to the basic renters insurance plan.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), May 06, 2001.

Eric, No, i do not own a home. I am actually signing up with the insurance agent my entire family (parents, brothers, sister...) uses. I used to personally have car insurance with this agent, but have since sold my car and stopped paying for that (I live in the SF Bay area and a car is a waste of money, and an enormous headache to own here - i ride a bicycle instead). I called another State Farm agent and asked about a PAF for camera stuff and he was very reluctant to sell it to me but was grudgingly willing to do it (he seemed like the type that wasn't going to fight to hard for me to get money for me from the underwriter so i decided not to go with him). So i called up our families State Farm agent, and he had no problem doing it, since my parents and siblings all insure pretty much everything other than health insurance through him, and I had been a client in the past, he had no problem signing me up for this. I also trust that he would 'fight' for me if need be to get money from the underwriter - for example if my camera was stolen in Africa and I couldn't get a police report to prove it, i think he could probably convince them to still reimburse me. Currently my camera PAF is the only insurance I personally have with him (I am not on some kind of "family account," but rather a personal account). I highly recommend calling your current car or renters insurance agent and asking them about a PAF. If not you can probably get some other agent to let you sign up for it, but you may have to phone around a bit.

-- Matthew Geddert (geddert@yahoo.com), May 06, 2001.

Eric:

While my passion is photography, I'm an insurance agent most days so as to pay the bills... My company (State Farm) offers what is called a "personal articles policy" that allows you to insure specific items such as art, jewelry, collectibles and cameras for specified amounts. Furthermore, this coverage is very broad, and covers accidental damage or loss as well as theft (If you drop it and break it, they buy you a new one). I'm not sure how the rates band across the US, but here in California you can insure camera equipment for about $15 per $1,000 of equipment per year. Most other major US insurures offer similar policies.

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), May 11, 2001.

Bear in mind, however, that if you do any kind of paid, professional work with your gear, the insurance company may decide that the PAF on your homeowner's policy is not valid. I do enough paid work that I decided to join PPA for their "all risks" insurance. The coverage is extremely broad and while not as cheap as a typical PAF, it does have a lower deductable ($100). It's also a tax-deductable business expense.

-- Robert Schneider (robslaurat@earthlink.net), May 11, 2001.

If you are a "professional", the coverage is still available, but at a higher rate - about $25.00/$1,000/year (again, full coverage in California). Deductibles can be selected from full coverage ($0.00) to $1,000.

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), May 11, 2001.

Also, the PAF or PAP can generally be purchased as a "stand alone" policy, not having to be attached to a homeowner's or renter's policy. HOWEVER, PAP policies are "stated value" policies - each piece of equipment is separately scheduled and insured for a specific value, and the coverage is very broad with few exclusions; whereas home/renters policies are generally "replacement value" policies, where the items are replaced with the currently available "new model" of your item (Yes, your M3 or IIIG would be replaced with an M6TTL if your camera was stolen!), but generally only cover named perils (fire, theft, etc.) which do not include accidental damage (dropping).

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), May 11, 2001.

I also had the State Farm Personal Articles Policy coverage on my video/camera gear back in Maryland and Virginia and it covered Professional Use. However, since moving to California in April of '01, they only cover the loss if it's for personal use. They do not cover losses during professional use. So, I have to look elsewhere.

-- Mike Blumenthal (mike-blumenthal@yomikeb.com), December 18, 2001.

Try: http://www.chubb.com/individuals/vac.html

I've heard good things about them.

If you have a lot of camera gear and tend to travel or use it in dangerous situations DO NOT insure it under your homeowners policy. I purchased a seperate "all risk floater" from state farm for all my camera gear, and because of 2 losses in three years they dropped my homeowners policy completely. Not just the aditional floater, but the entire homeowners policy. Now I have to spend at least three years with a sub-prime insurance company paying double my previous rates before I can get one of the big-boys to insure me again (because of having been refused insurance). Mind you, I never had a claim on the house policy itself, just on the camera floater. I hate State Farm, stay away from those assholes. You should seriously re-think the idea of insuring your gear with an additional floater under your State Farm homeowners policy. That is exactly what I did and I got SCREWED because I had claims on that policy (lost leica +voigt lens & one year later lost cell phone). My local agent told me it was okay to make the claims, I made them. And then when it came time to renew my homowners policy 2 months later, State Farm said, "Sorry, we're denying you homeowners coverage because you had too many losses on your policy" Even though it was on a completely SEPERATE policy (the floater, NOT my homeowners policy). You are basically throwing your money away by insuring with State Farm, they will jerk you around.

This is a conglomeration of two diferent posts I made in a related thread. So some things got repeated.

-- Josh Root (rootj@att.net), January 02, 2002.