Insurers don’t always get it right. There was a well documented case, after a period of heavy rain and flooding, where insurers drastically increased premiums for anyone living within a short (horizontal) distance of a river. One homeowner complained that it was a risk he was prepared to take given that his house was perched on a clifftop that a swollen river would obviously never reach. The insurers didn’t care, they just wanted his money.
That, of course, is of limited relevance to HiFi insurance, but it demonstrates the way criteria such as location or postcode are used as very blunt instruments in assessing risk.
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A friend of mine had exactly that issue, where the river about 10 m below his house and 200 m away was in the same postcode. He was the other side of a busy road, which as a matter of public record had never flooded.
As he had a large property, it was worthwhile the broker arguing and the underwriter eventually agreed to set aside the flood risk part of the quote. But if he had lived in a 3 bed semi or similar, no-one would have bothered to listen to him.
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Probably not, but I understand that two e-bikes of the values they are, are prime targets for thieves, and no matter how many locks I fit when on the back of a campervan they can be stolen in just a couple of minutes or less, and such thefts are becoming increasingly frequent. £100-150 added to house insurance is well worth it for peace of mind - their theft would spoil a holiday, but not being able to afford to replace tgem, or going without something in order to afford them, is something we don’t want to risk.
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Something a bit off topic but insurance related. I had my home contents/audio equipment/records/cds stolen in a house move last year. When making a claim via the storage company, they require invoices to substantiate the value of the stolen items. As most of my receipts are gone, photos are acceptable (better if you are also in the picture). I bought a couple of stuff online and is able to extract the order history. For those who have high value Audio, Records and CDs, best to do some record keeping. It will definitely help especially when you are trying to negotiate for an agreed settlement amount.
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My dealer has records of everything I bought from him, but yes, the more evidence you have, the better. I keep photos of the equipment in situ, and the model and serial numbers on back of the boxes.
Insurance companies are hard work really. Don’t you think? 99% of the time you pay them money and get nothing back (except peace of mind maybe).
Fair enough, then insurance is better value and working better for you.
Insurance was and still should be (is) to share the misfortune across a number of individuals. A ‘book’ of business will have loss ratios and claims are expected and ‘forecast’ premiums are there to reflect the cover for likelihood of you making a claim, plus commercial gain.
The main issue in recent years is the ambulance chasers and low integrity legal companies adding significantly to claims costs and administrative burdens. Add that fraud in challenging economic times and we all pay.
If you want to self insure it is a gamble. A reasonably well off acquaintance ‘self insures’ his property as he has no mortgage. Two years ago he was a victim of a burglary, damage and loss added up to over 15 years of annual premium ‘saved’. That’s a bitter pill to swallow
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Yep. Counterpoint to your friend’s anecdote. I’ve never made a major claim in 35 years, but have paid tens of thousands in premiums. Yep, it’s a gamble either way. That’s life.
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“Insurers don’t always get it right…”. That’s 100% true. They simplify their assessments of risk to save costs, but then add enough contingency in premiums to ensure that the uncertainty is well-covered. Arguing for a special assessment on the grounds that the simplified assessment overstated the risk of your specific circumstances is really difficult, and only really possible of you threaten to go elsewhere.
The counter-example, where you have some aspect of your case that is higher risk than average (and premiums are therefore under-priced) can still be found in favour of the insurance company by way of the general duty to disclose these things to your insurance company that is written into your contract.
Fun fact. Burglar alarms don’t much affect the chance of being burgled, but insurance comanies love them, because if you are burgled, the insurance company can use the failure of your alarm to prevent the burglary as grounds to deny the claim.
They’ve got this stuff covered. They’re not your friend. They simply provide a service for a fee, and will act only in the interests of shareholders and handsomely remunerated senior management.
I don’t see how they can use that as an argument, if the alarm sounded - but yes if the alarm failed to sound
Me neither. If that was true then alarm companies wouldn’t get much business as everyone knows it’s just a deterrent. For example, the ‘smash and grabbers’ don’t care if an alarm goes off as they’ll be out and away before anyone bats an eyelid.
It’s mostly about whether or not you can prove that you armed it. With remotely monitored systems, this should be more straightforward as they will have records.
I live in a rented flat in an urban area. So building insurance will be the landlord’s responsibility.
I’d like to insure my hi-fi (purchased 2nd hand) and record collection againt loss, fire and accidental damage.
I hope the cost will be much less than some of the figures quoted on here.
Aviva gets a vote of confidence from several people on here. So I’ll doing some window shopping on their website. Plus Nationwide as I’m an account holder.
The reality is some, but not all insurers do actually provide good cover. Why ? Because their reputation counts and they recognise that settling is often inevitable and the smoother the process the lower the ultimate cost. Insurers expect claims, it’s me and you that don’t expect to claim.
I was the CFO for the 4th largest loss adjuster in the UK many years ago and when the floods came in the premium insurers like Chubb, Zurich Private client were telling the adjusters not to refer to claim limits but to ensure the customers were recompensed for their loss. Don’t forget even large organisations with strong balance sheets will manage their risk through layers of reinsurance. The lower grade commodity insurers had a very different perceptive. Ive never chased just premium price since.
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A few years back I switched to new-for-old insurance, because I have seen market-value claims by other friends resulting in massive arguments about actual current values, and then losing a lot.
However, having been on a little old-gear upgrade path, even that has become complicated.
The makers of my early 2000’s amp reportedly stated that it would cost 3 times the price to build one now (large amount of custom caps and materials, inflation, etc). It’s hard to see an insurance company fronting up with 2-3 times more than the original asking price without a fight, regardless of the true, new, equivalent, replacement value.
I have made a spreadsheet like others here, but only perceive it as being the starting point for a big argument, if ever it is needed.
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New for old would get you an ‘equivalent’ new amp and that’s fair enough. If you want it replaced ‘as original’ I imagine you’d need to insure it as a specific item with an agreed replacement value and pay an additional premium for that.
That is fair enough and I would only expect an equivalent. It’s just that the insurance companies view of equivalent vs, mine are both likely to be very biased in opposite directions.
If, for example (based only on a quick Google), an NAP300 was $8,950 in 2004 and $16,000 in 2021 (albeit with DR, but still arguably the nearest equivalent … if superseding by NC is incorrectly ignored). I expect the insurance company would pay out the almost-double $16K recent price.
If, hypothetically, the 300 had stopped production in 2005, what do you think they would be offering? My guess is not much over the original price.
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When we lived in a city in South Wales I fitted an alarm although not required by the ins company, having been advised by the police crime prevention officer that at that point in time in the year (about May IIRC) there hadn’t yet been a successful undetected burglary from any house in the city - they explained that whilst the alarm sounding might not stop a burglar, it makes people look up and notice someone leaving the premises or a vehicle driving off, and so the police are able to get a description. But that was 30 years ago - I suspect different now.
That is very true, however they surely could not argue against the youngest secondhand available, if you don’t like whatever they regard as current equivalent, otherwise the cash vale of the equivalent, though that I guess would be significantly lower than the normal retail price. And during negotiations I would point them to the manufacturers (assuming still in business) to advise which of their products is. When I had PMC EB1i speakers I was concerned about what would be considered equivalent, because the performance lay between current models,so I asked PMC: they said the IB2SE. In the event of loss I would have been happy with either the cash value of those, or if too low then a new pair of those to sell immediately and upgrade to better secondhand. The bigger problem I suspect is where only one of a pair of speakers is lost, as might happen with a fire or impact damage, because from policies I’ve read they don’t commit to replacing both of a pair of anything.