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Photo Forum / General Photo Topics / Australian Photography / July 2006How do you value your equipment for insurance purposes?
When I took out insurance a year ago the majority of my equipment was new, so I simply put down the purchase price as the value of each item. Renewal time is coming up and markets change, so I now need to determine their current true value. How do you do this? I figure the best way would be to get an actual insurance quote from a supplier, but that's going to be out of the question as I'm just a consumer and I'm not actually making a claim. Next best way... average the values from a few reputable stores and add a little headroom for good measure? What happens when the model is no longer for sale as new? I feel like I'm getting stuck in the insurance catch-22: if I overinsure then I'm paying a higher premium than I need to, if I underinsure then I risk being out of pocket if I make a claim. I guess the former is preferable. That depends. If the policy is 'new for old', your replacement value is the cost of the nearest equivalent new items. If the policy is 'depreciated value', check out publications like 'Photographic Trader' for an idea of the current asking prices. Cheers > When I took out insurance a year ago the majority of my equipment was > new, so I simply put down the purchase price as the value of each item. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > to, if I underinsure then I risk being out of pocket if I make a claim. > I guess the former is preferable. > That depends. > > If the policy is 'new for old', your replacement value is the cost of the > nearest equivalent new items. Hmm... wonder what happens when a current model that is about to be superceded (and therefore has steadily decreasing street price versus its original release RRP) is insured for the current market value value, stolen, then the only replacement available is at the "early adopter" higher pricing. I guess it's up to me to follow these model line changes and update my cover to suit? My cover is new for old but I presume that if I don't correctly estimate the value then I'm up the creek. Perhaps, then, your insurer can give some guidance on whether they expect you to estimate the current market value of your equipment, or the 'new for old' replacement value. Cheers > > That depends. > > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > My cover is new for old but I presume that if I don't correctly > estimate the value then I'm up the creek. >>That depends. >> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > My cover is new for old but I presume that if I don't correctly > estimate the value then I'm up the creek. having had much expreience with camera experience..... they find the closest current equivilant. If it costs them $1 to replace it... then so be it... dollar value is not the issue, it is features. Sometimes you may lose the odd feature, but gain others. if a camera's street price had declined and is about to be superseeded, so long as it is equal or better than your old camera, the insurance company will take the cheapest option. you can upgrade from their replacement, but will need to expect the value to be the value the insurance company get's it for, not street price or retail. in some instances this can work to your advantage.... ie an old film camera where you paid an extra $50 to get the 50/1.4 lens instead of the 50/1.8 will translate into a $600 replacement if they don't opt to give you a more flexible zoom... in this case, stick to your guns as you often "Shoot in low light and need the fast lens" or ensure they replace an exteranl camera flash (which nowadays cost $500+) as this can give quite a bit of extra cash to play with. An exapmle of this (some time ago) was a guy I knew kept a Canon PELIX in his bag along with the other camera equipment.... a $200 old 2nd hand camera... but the replacement was a Canon RS (megabucks) because it offered unique features that could only be offered by the RS..... I also new a guy who picked up a Leica IIIf with lenses full of fungus.... when it was stolen, it was a Leica M7 and a full suit of lenses as a replacement..... sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.... it's all about equal or better features. reagrdless of any value you put on it, the insurance company refer to a database of replacement models, and go with the cheapests quote unless they are under a supplier agreement... ie say Michael hill for jewellery. just be sure to list EVERYTHING - case, mem card, extra strap, filters etc. kosh > in some instances this can work to your advantage.... ie an old film > camera where you paid an extra $50 to get the 50/1.4 lens instead of the [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > M7 and a full suit of lenses as a replacement..... sometimes you win, > sometimes you lose.... it's all about equal or better features. Sounds like something bordering on insurance fraud to me... holding a sacrifical item whose current replacement value is far higher than its market value... I benefited from new-for-old replacement because my 1997 business grade laptop (pentium 133, 32Mb of RAM and a 1Gb HD... slow but still useful) had to be replaced with a current model business grade laptop quoted at about $2,600. It was nice having a <$100 value laptop replaced with a brand new one but that was because of circumstance, not deliberate intent. I purchased that old laptop long before we had contents insurance. :) googlegroups@sensation.net.au Wrote: > When I took out insurance a year ago the majority of my equipment was > new, so I simply put down the purchase price as the value of each [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > claim. > I guess the former is preferable. You should try to insure for replacement value. paul  Signaturehydro If its a repacemnet value policy, I imagine that you'd use the same figures that you used when it was first insured. Otherwise, it going tobased on the depreciated value of your gear. If you visit the ATO, you can find out ehat rate they allow camera equipment to be depreciated at. Use that figure & you should be safe. Peter >When I took out insurance a year ago the majority of my equipment was >new, so I simply put down the purchase price as the value of each item. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >to, if I underinsure then I risk being out of pocket if I make a claim. >I guess the former is preferable. > When I took out insurance a year ago the majority of my equipment was > new, so I simply put down the purchase price as the value of each item. > Renewal time is coming up and markets change, so I now need to > determine their current true value. If it's for business, then I'd insure for the residual value - that is, after depreciation. If private, I just stick with a nominated value. > When I took out insurance a year ago the majority of my equipment was > new, so I simply put down the purchase price as the value of each item. > Renewal time is coming up and markets change, so I now need to > determine their current true value. Just a quick followup - my policy is new-for-old, but with a maximum amount payable. This means that if *everything* on the list was stolen the total cost of replacement items would need to be equal to or below the total insured value. Now I have to decide whether to overinsure a camera body that currently has a relatively low street price, which may soon to be superceded by a model with an undoubtably higher early adopter price. |
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