Hello all,
Having read in the forum of Marco's tragic loss of trains and also a near miss of mother nature's attempt to do the same to my collection;
I think it's time for me to look into some serious insurance for my Marklins. Any thoughts on the best way to go about this would be most welcome.

Does any one have first hand experience with collector's specific insurance companies? Are they any good or do they mysteriously vanish when it's time to cash in?

Would it be better to go through my home owner's insurance? (Fire Theft etc).

Do I have to document every piece of my collection with photos and inventory list or do they have some type of blanket coverage for the whole shebang? At this time all my trains are packed away and doing a physical inventory would be much simplified years down the road when my layout and display cabinets are complete.

If I had to (and I know I should) I could create an inventory list by memory. It may not be 100% accurate but at least I would have some documentation for the insurer.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts,
Mikey

Hello,

I had investigated insurance options with http://aciginsurance.com/~acigin5/ and was impressed with their offering. They require a brief inventory and more detailed information only for items of high value (over a few thousand dollars). Overall it seemed very reasonable and the staff there are friendly.

If you'd like to use an inventory tool you are welcome to try http://get.collectormetric.com/ This particular insurance group said it would be a great tool to use for inventory and it's one that my team and I have built ourselves.

Best wishes,

Paul

I have Farmers Insurance for a number of years now and I cannot complain of the rates or coverage. I had two major incidents and with no hassles. I just completed my inventory and my modest collection came to about $17,000 which is rather inflated for rarely do you can back what you paid for these items. My agent said no problem but I have taken pictures of everything and putting them on disc to store at my bank. I know first hand what a pain it is to pack and repack everything but what if a major storm comes and you have no proof? These days everything has to have a video or picture for people to believe you. Fred

I have had home contents insurance policies with 'new for old' stipulations, so if you ruin the white carpet with a red wine soaking you do get a new carpet paid for in full by the insurance company, despite 10 years of wear.

But i can't see them doing this for collections insurance

Which is why it makes sense to ensure the collection is covered by your existing policies you already pay for (say home insurance against fire or theft) which may require inventorying (a good idea anyway for all household items) along with photos.

Its work checking on any limits your homeowners insurance has on the category as well. Eg jewelry, etc may have limits to what their policy pays regardless of what you have - unless you get a separate rider/insurance. Back in my younger days I had more firearms than the standard renters insurance covered so I got additional insurance for the rifles.

Buying a 'collector' rider only makes sense for high value items that are unlikely to be stolen/lost but hard/impossible to replace or self insure (ie you use the money you saved by not paying premiums to replace the item).

Some personal experience from my end (in Canada) with my insurance company (yours may vary so check yourself before you ever need to use it!)

1) without a rider, collectibles aren’t insured. What this means is any appreciation of value is not considered for the item. Any loss of value due to say the box being damaged is not considered. Any extra loss of value say to a set of 4 wagons where only 2 were damaged and so is no longer complete is not considered (they’ll give you 50% in this case). For example In my case I had some locomotives that included one of those nice display tracks. The display tracks were lost and i only got a paltry sum of a few dollars for these.

2) because of (1) they are basically treated as toys or consumer electronics. Any current value is depreciated based on age. Toys and electronics deprecate a lot. You may have replacement cost coverage which would cover you for the original full retail price if and only if you replace it with the same within a limited time window. If not, you’re entitled to the depreciated value only. So a 70 year old CCS800 is probably worth nothing in this case :)

I may not agree with the overall tone of the post, but Dale has come up with some good points relating to risk.
My collection is documented as an “item of value” within my home insurance package. The collection is kept within barred locked secure walls, which is what Dale suggests. And it is fully documented.
However my greatest risk (I live in a wooden house, normal for many Australians prior to 1960) is both fire and storm against which I have little defence.
That is why I pay a little extra on my policy.

Kimball

Right,
It’s called risk management.

Juha

All, I have been rather quiet on the forum recently as our home sustained an electrical fire that caused approximately $260k in structure damage not to mention the contents damage (including model trains). Thankfully no one was hurt and our 3 cats and rabbit were rescued by the fire department. As we have to rebuild the house completely, except for the undamaged framing and the foundation, I am on a first name basis with my insurance adjusters. I have a policy with a large north American publicly traded insurance company. We have agreement on the house rebuild and as part of it, I will end up with a 12' x 12' model train room, Yay! We will be back in the house December 2017/January 2018.

As my model trains were in two different parts of the house, 1/2 of my collection was not damaged. Of the 1/2 that was damaged by fire, smoke, heat and water; 1/3 is destroyed, 1/3 heavily damaged and 1/3 smoke damaged. For the model railroad contents portion, the insurance company and I have agreed in principle that the more modern digital trains and c-track, plastic buildings etc, will have a depreciated value, which I am establishing by recent ebay. us sales. For the vintage articles, we have agreed that they be treated as antiques, and we are working thru the valuation. Quick question: So what is the deprecated value of a pristine TT 800 with an original box, never run that is smoke damaged? My lawyer and I contend that the article will never be pristine and that we should have full replacement value. This is unresolved. The insurance company is also offering a buy back to me of 10 cents on the dollar, for the articles that are non-salvage (not worth saving or destroyed).
As we have not come to complete agreement yet on value, I will keep everyone posted on the outcome.

My recommendation is that folks inventory their collection (my last one was in 1994 and really outdated). IMHO a specialty collectible policy may be a good idea, because of the amount of education that I have to provide to my insurance company, like on the value/merits of a composite RS Spitaler building from the 1950s versus a plastic Lifelike American HO building from the 1970s...they think that they are both toys and worth $5 dollars.

Thom,

sad story indeed, and it will be very interesting to see your data point on how much you actually get back from insurance at the end of the day. It would also be very illustrative to also state how much you think you paid in for the value of the trains (your valuation of the train/total insured value * sum of all premiums) + your time and effort trying to document, educate and make the claim

best of luck,
Dale

Hello Wolf,

I am also in Quebec and have been planning to insure our stuff too.
If you have any recommendations of the names of actual insurance companies that would be welcome.

I spoke very briefly the other day to a sales rep from Desjardins who also provide my car insurance at reasonable rates, and gave me a generous return on a car accident for 15 year old car. (Not my fault... honestly )
They offered me about 2k on a Toyota Corolla from 2000 and when I presented my receipts for work done and the mileage and the excellent condition of the old car, they doubled the payout to 4K.

So I am hoping to find an insurer that is not as complicated as you describe here: