Insuring your Collection

[sdematt]

Hey all.

Considering how most Legacy decks are worth a pretty penny, and with all the recent high profile theft events, how many of you have considered insuring your collections?

I'm curious because I'm trying to see if there's enough interest in the community to approach an insurer, or if any of you would know who to get insurance from for a collection. Most homeowner's policies only cover up to $5,000, and others will not put a rider on the collection.

So, does anyone have any ideas or want to associate together to get a rate from a company? If you don't feel comfortable posting, PM me.

-Matt

[Dan Turner]

I have approached a couple of different companies over my collection and get pretty much the same reply.

There are only 2 companies I have found who insure collectibles at all.

http://www.collectinsure.com/

http://www.thefia.com/html/collectibles.html


Really good thing is you can even get Mail loss protection from Collect Insure.

[sdematt]

I have approached a couple of different companies over my collection and get pretty much the same reply.

There are only 2 companies I have found who insure collectibles at all.

http://www.collectinsure.com/

http://www.thefia.com/html/collectibles.html


Really good thing is you can even get Mail loss protection from Collect Insure.

Ok, I'll take a look into these.

Anyone else?

-Matt

[Mr.C]

Ok, I'll take a look into these.

Anyone else?

-Matt

When I was in BC, and my collection was much larger, I had it insured with BCAA, and paid a hefty premium.

[zendo]

I asked my agent about insuring my cards. His immediate reply was "Baseball or Magic?"

I sent him a link to my listing on Deckbox, and he worked me up a quote. They had some sort of 'personal collection' policy they could get me. I took it. It covers everything from fire, theft, loss, to stupidity.

I orginally switched to this company for cheaper auto insurance. My new insurance policy, plus the 'personal collection' policy together, is cheaper than I had been paying for my old auto insurance policy.

You might look into it, but I wonder if they have State Farm Insurance way up there.

[SmallFish]

http://www.americancollectors.com/

You can try this but I'm not sure if they work in Canada or just the US (AMERICANcollectors). You can get a quote by clicking on the right hand side, selecting the state, and filling out the info. Just make sure you hit the collectibles since the default quote is for collectible cars.

[infant_no_1]

I'd love to insure my collecton. I've looked into it, but have kept coming up empty.
Let me know what kind of info you'd need.

[psrex]

I've been meaning to look into insuring my collection, and I saved this post from another board:

Alright, in case more people want to know about insurance, I will just post it here.

The company I got insurance with is American Collectors Insurance. My own insurance company doesn't insure collectibles, so they contracted ACI to do that. And I did get a 10% discount for that relationship.

I provided them a Google doc of the cards that I want to insure. I don't know if you need to do that, but I bet that they need some information about what is in the collection. Also, you need to provide pictures of anything over $2,000.

Here is their contact information:
496 Kings Highway North - P.O. Box 8343 - Cherry Hill, NJ 08002-0343
Telephone: (800) 630-6302 - Fax (856) 755-3630
www.AmericanCollectors.com

[mini1337s]

When I was in BC, and my collection was much larger, I had it insured with BCAA, and paid a hefty premium.

What was your monthly premium like?
Anyone in insurance have a rough idea what I would pay on premiums to ensure a collection at $28,000?

[Ziveeman]

State Farm insures Magic cards.

[sdematt]

Not sure if State Farm operates in Canada.

Ideally, I'm trying to find a company that works in North America (usually ones that are international, like say, Lloyd's of London or whatever are going to cost a bunch) for we can all get in on it, and get a good rate for doing so.

I'll take a look around, but if others can do so as well, it'll go faster.

-Matt

[Wereodile]

Not sure if State Farm operates in Canada.

I have State Farm here in Ont. I will email my rep and see what she says.

[sdematt]

I'm from BC if that helps.

-Matt

[WorstBandNameEver]

I've been meaning to look into insuring my collection, and I saved this post from another board:

Alright, in case more people want to know about insurance, I will just post it here.

The company I got insurance with is American Collectors Insurance. My own insurance company doesn't insure collectibles, so they contracted ACI to do that. And I did get a 10% discount for that relationship.

I provided them a Google doc of the cards that I want to insure. I don't know if you need to do that, but I bet that they need some information about what is in the collection. Also, you need to provide pictures of anything over $2,000.

Here is their contact information:
496 Kings Highway North - P.O. Box 8343 - Cherry Hill, NJ 08002-0343
Telephone: (800) 630-6302 - Fax (856) 755-3630
www.AmericanCollectors.com

I called them a while ago and they said they don't I sure magic cards since it's a fad. Maybe they changed their outlook.

[Warr]

I am insured through American Collectors. My background:

With the growing concern of theft at major events and a couple close calls with my cards, I specifically asked my renter's insurance provider if my collection was covered completely under my policy. Even though my other possessions are covered completely, there were loss limits on certain categories of items. I was told my cards would be considered under philatelic items (i.e. stamp collections) and that the loss limit was $1,000. They did offer additional coverage, but trading cards weren't considered a coverable category (although stamp collections were, for some reason).

Not liking the answers I was hearing, I went with a company that specializes in collectibles. I found at least two of them that specifically covered trading cards: American Collectors Insurance and Collectibles Insurance Services. The premium from either for $20k of coverage was ~$120 a year and well worth the additional peace of mind. No appraisal required, but they did require photo proof of any single item over a certain limit. American Collectors also has an online interface that lets me upload inventories and photos for collection tracking which I found to be useful.

[Malchar]

Not sure if State Farm operates in Canada.

Ideally, I'm trying to find a company that works in North America (usually ones that are international, like say, Lloyd's of London or whatever are going to cost a bunch) for we can all get in on it, and get a good rate for doing so.

I'll take a look around, but if others can do so as well, it'll go faster.

-Matt

This is actually a pretty good idea. I don't think it's very efficient for each person to get a policy from their own insurance company, either for the individual or the company. If you had lots of players get together in some kind of player's union, you could get a much more efficient group policy which covered everyone. This would be particularly beneficial for the insurance company because a larger pool decreases the variance of the claim payments, meaning that they would be able to charge a more competitive rate to the consumers.

Getting your cards insured along with your existing insurance isn't particularly efficient because the insurance company is essentially doubling-down on the risk that you have a loss. For example, if you add cards to your home insurance, it's not a very good deal for them because if your house burns down, then that's just a larger claim that you're going to file. The insurance company is basically just taking a bigger risk, and they have to charge a pretty inflated price to offset that.

The idea of a player's union is very ambitious, but at least you could still get together with a few of your friends and try to see if you can get a better rate for insuring your pooled collection. You could also look into what kind of insurance the mtg vendors get on their card pool.

[SmallFish]

Getting your cards insured along with your existing insurance isn't particularly efficient because the insurance company is essentially doubling-down on the risk that you have a loss. For example, if you add cards to your home insurance, it's not a very good deal for them because if your house burns down, then that's just a larger claim that you're going to file. The insurance company is basically just taking a bigger risk, and they have to charge a pretty inflated price to offset that.

The idea of a player's union is very ambitious, but at least you could still get together with a few of your friends and try to see if you can get a better rate for insuring your pooled collection. You could also look into what kind of insurance the mtg vendors get on their card pool.

The insurance company's main concern with cards would be theft and that would be the main reason companies wouldn't want to insure the collections. Doubling-down on another type of insurance would be beneficial to them because they will be making more money. If your house burns down and you have 1-2 cars in the garage, those cars will be all sorts of jacked up but the insurance companies don't put a surcharge on the auto policy even though their chance of a greater loss went up. Same thing with putting an addition on a house - you add more coverage and the exposure is more valuable, but the insurance companies don't charge extra for that even though they stand to lose more in the event of a claim.

As far as premiums go, $120/year for $25,000 does not seem like a lot, so I don't know how much anyone would really save if you got a group together to purchase insurance. Usually group rates are only going to apply with health care or if you have a huge group. I don't know how big of a group you would be looking at, but if it's 10-20 guys trying to get a lower rate on $100-$200 premiums of insurance, I doubt the insurance companies would bite on that.

Last thing - MTGVendors should have the cards scheduled on their buisness insurance policies. Usually, you can have an endorsement added to those policies to cover cards/comic books/ etc. when you take them to a convention or similar event. My guess is they would have that and if not, they may just get a special events policy to cover their exposure for the 1-2 days they are at a convention.

[psrex]

As far as American Collectors Insurance, I like this bit:

Collector's Choice - This extra coverage provides protection while items are being shipped, being stored outside of the residence, for special occasion usage, and more!

This sounds like a huge boon for active online traders, and that it would cover your deck/binder getting stolen at a tournament.

[Dan Turner]

What was your monthly premium like?
Anyone in insurance have a rough idea what I would pay on premiums to ensure a collection at $28,000?

My collection is insured at $175k and I pay $950 a year

[sdematt]

My collection is insured at $175k and I pay $950 a year

What company do you have it with? Is it separate?

-Matt