Equipment Insurance

[Canis Vulpes]

Having slowing assembled a few Bob's worth of kit I am considering specialist photography equipment insurance. At present my kit is named on household policy but what if something happened whilst in transit or walking around etc - am I covered?

Does anyone use specialist insurers and what is your opinion of them?

[yelvertoft]

It depends on theterms of your specific house contents insurance. Read all the small print to find out the exact details of your cover. Probably more important to find out when you aren't covered.

If the cover provided by your contents insurance fits your needs, then there is no point in paying for a specialist policy to cover you for exactly the same things again.

If the cover on your contents policy isn't quite what you are after then give your insurers a ring and discuss it with them, they may well be able to tweak the cover to suit your needs (probably for a small additional premium) rather than risk losing you as a customer.

Duncan.

[Nigel G]

Hi Stephen

The thread below on BF had a pretty dim view of specialist insurance.

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=43957

One potential problem with most household insurance is that you will find in the small print a £1000 limit on any loss from an unattended vehicle. Fine if you never ever leave your camera locked in the boot even for a moment...

I did quite a bit of research on alternative buildings/household cover around Christmas and ended up changing to Hiscox's online 505 policy. It gave better overall cover, worldwide, less need to specify items and with a £2.5K limit for that unattended vehicle. Oh yes I also save £200 a year.

If you need more cover than this then the 506 policy which has to be arranged through a broker can be fully tailored to suit. Out of curiosity I asked for a quote to cover £7.5K in an unattended vehicle + all normal buildings and contents and the result was no worse than I had been paying with LloydsTSB !

http://www.hiscox.com/ViewCMSPage.as...7-0ef8e6098345

[Wheeler]

Stephen, make sure you talk to your insurer and run a few scenarios past them. Have a clear idea of the value of the gear that you'll be carrying and make sure that you're covered.

I've recently had a pretty huge claim paid out after a theft from my car and my household policy all risks extension covered me for all but the £50 excess. This worked out a great deal cheaper than a separate policy using the flyer that falls out of all your photography mags.