Insurance on your video game collection - Anyone doing this?

[mjmjr25]

Background:
My septic system backed up about 14 months ago, a few inches of standing / nasty water on our lower level floor. Nothing gaming related was damaged, mostly just the new flooring, some tools, some furniture, baseboards, rugs, etc.

For all of that stuff, our home insurance covered. It was our first insurance claim - we (my wife and I) were pretty amused at the process. Everything had a price already set - despite what we paid for it. Name brand did not matter (good if you have off-brand, bad if you have quality name-brand) for items like rugs / furniture / televisions, etc. For example, we claimed one leather lazyboy that we paid $600 for, it was 2 years old and the price on 2yr old recliner was like $210 or something. I claimed a drill also, a Milwaukee 1/2" corded drill that was damaged, I got $150 for that, and I only paid $99 on amazon. A very odd process.

Drywall, baseboard, flooring was all the same, most we got close to what we paid, some a bit under, but all and all we came out ok, considering our initial fears.

Then it got interesting. I tried to claim an uncut sheet / set of 1992 topps basketball (Shaquille O'Neal rookie among others). She asked how many cards were on the sheet(s) and I told her 4 sheets at about 80 cards per sheet. She said, "So then $32 on that, anything else?" !! I mean, !!! She could tell I was pissed and she clarified that baseball cards are $0.10 apiece, there are no caveats for value, rarity, uncut, etc. I asked how could that be, what if it was my box of really good stuff? She stated I needed to have it appraised and privately / separately insured.

I asked the same question about video games and she said they are like $10 for new games and $2.50 for older games. Same thing, if it is a valuable collection I will want to have it appraised and an added monthly fee into our home insurance can be added.

So this weekend I was arranging some things and taking an inventory of my stuffs when I realized I had not done this yet.

My question to the community - Has anyone done this? Has anyone appraised their collection and taken out insurance on it? Describe the process - as far as startup, talk about premiums you pay, talk about the process if you sell a game or acquire a game...do you need to call your carrier for each acquisition to have it added?

I'd like to get this taken care of soon, but would like to seek any advice from y'all first.

[J T]

I wonder if I could get insurance on my Steam collection in case I ever get my account accidentally banned or Valve happens to go out of business in the future.

[MrPopo]

I'd be interested in hearing about this as well, as I now definitely have a collection worth insuring for the true value.

[J T]

I'd be interested in hearing about this as well, as I now definitely have a collection worth insuring for the true value.

Yeah, you would be the one person I know that I would think should do this given that NES World Championship cart in your collection.

[s1mplehumar]

I'd be interested in hearing about this as well, as I now definitely have a collection worth insuring for the true value.

I'd be more concerned about a stealthy heist.

[dsheinem]

Excellent question.

As an aside, I wonder if insurance companies hire people to appraise game collections. Hmmm....

[harper]

My mom has actually asked me on a couple of different occassions if I keep track of all my stuff just in case the house goes up in flames or something. I didn't really think that was something that could be covered though.

[CRTGAMER]

I think the insurance will only cover the CURRENT value of a game collection and it does not exceed the total value you initially annually pay coverage for. If the worse happens the appraiser might devalue the games due to no longer being new just like a car or the living room sofa and not the true "collectable" value.

Maybe for the high cost collectable games you might need a clause added in the contract so the normal devalue new vs depreciation does not take place.

Full coverage on any car is a joke. It is depreciates in the appraiser's eyes the moment you bought it.

[Croooow!]

I've been working in insurance claims for the past couple years (tomorrow is my last day, praise the Lord). Anyhow, how things should be insured and how they will be covered depends very much on the policy and the company. At my company, for example, having replacement cost coverage versus actual cash value coverage on your Household Personal Property grants you reimbursement for the market value of antiques, collectibles, etc. If you don't mind me asking, mjmjr, who are you insured with? The size of the company and their concentration can have a big impact on what settlement you receive.

Having good documentation of what you have is essential to getting a fair settlement and if you have a large collection you will want to have it scheduled on the policy. This could involve getting an appraisal done but if your collection is over $1000 you definitely should ask your agent about it, having a rough list and estimating the price yourself might suffice. The policy at my company will only pay up to $2500 for "collectibles" if they are not scheduled on the policy. An appraisal isn't meant to get an exact value of your collection but a rough estimate of its worth. It might be a good idea to show your agent Video Game Price Charts or some other site in lieu of an appraisal.

I can think of a case where someone had an Atari 2600 and a bunch of games stolen. The adjuster working the claim had not idea that those games could have any value, and I told her it really depends on which games they have. Fortunatley the insured had photos of the collection before it was stolen. I showed my coworker Video Game Price Charts and she was able to reach an agreed value with the insured.

[Jmustang1968]

I'm not going to lie, part of my motivation for posting pics of my collection is for insurance purposes as well as sharing my room and collection. I didn't know I would have to have separate insurance though to cover it... I am thinking my game collection is in the 15-20k range now, and it would be heart breaking to only get 500 to 1k for it or something in the event of some fire or theft... I suppose I should look into this.