Camera & lenses insurance - your experience?

jeallen01

I've got various cameras and lenses covered by a separate specialist insurance policy (and I'd rather keep them separate from my house insurance cover - because that one is "complicated").


So far I've used Photoguard and currently Glover & Howe, and the renewal quote from the latter is £153 for about £4.5k cover (some of the lenses are rather rare!) - although I can probably reduce that a bit by reducing the replacement values for some of the older kit.


Before I renew, has anyone any other suggestions for companies that charge reasonable premiums AND have a good reputation for settling claims (not that I have ever made one for the photo-kit!)?

Thanks in advance.


John

InsideInsurance

Thats fairly close to the price of my home insurance that on top of my £6k of camera kit provides unlimited cover for normal items, £50k for jewelry etc and includes £25k of personal possessions world wide.

Do you need any of the PI/PL cover that camera insurance tends to come with? Can you uncomplicate your home insurance situation to be able to cover it normally?

pinkteapot

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Thats fairly close to the price of my home insurance that on top of my £6k of camera kit provides unlimited cover for normal items, £50k for jewelry etc and includes £25k of personal possessions world wide.

Apologies for the thread hijack - but who is that with, InsideInsurance? We pay about £500 per year! We have about £8k of camera gear, £5k of jewellery, but nothing else that needs specifying. Will be getting a quote from your insurer.

jeallen01

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Do you need any of the PI/PL cover that camera insurance tends to come with? Can you uncomplicate your home insurance situation to be able to cover it normally?

Don't need PI/PL cover (and not currently included anyway). Home insurance is complicated because of my wife's insulin pump, which we have to cover for 2x the value (i.e. 2x £2800!) because she carries a loan spare when we go abroad on holiday - and that sort of cover is difficult to obtain.

InsideInsurance

pinkteapot wrote: »

Apologies for the thread hijack - but who is that with, InsideInsurance? We pay about £500 per year! We have about £8k of camera gear, £5k of jewellery, but nothing else that needs specifying. Will be getting a quote from your insurer.

Its M&S's Premium offering, underwritten by Axa who have a fairly similar policy available direct. Summary is http://bank.marksandspencer.com/pdf/HIPremierPolicySummary.pdf

Premium is actually a bit over £200 from memory but Quidco always has £45 or more cashback so just lapse and buy again new each year to give a net premium that is very close to the OPs.


As to insulin pumps, I am confused if you are actually insuring it for twices its value or you are needing cover for £5,600 because there is two of them at certain times?

jeallen01

InsideInsurance wrote: »

As to insulin pumps, I am confused if you are actually insuring it for twices its value or you are needing cover for £5,600 because there is two of them at certain times?

When we go away, she wears her normal one and takes another loan unit as a spare in case the normal one fails - so, yes, there are two at such times (and it is very difficult to get cover for these as most insurance companies appear to have no idea what they are or how to icover them - currently we use the Co-op and they are very helpful in that respect)

InsideInsurance

jeallen01 wrote: »

When we go away, she wears her normal one and takes another loan unit as a spare in case the normal one fails - so, yes, there are two at such times (and it is very difficult to get cover for these as most insurance companies appear to have no idea what they are or how to icover them - currently we use the Co-op and they are very helpful in that respect)

I cannot see any special terms on medical equipment in the policybook so see no reason why it'd cause any problems but clearly Im not as experienced with the issues as you are and obviously you should check before considering switching insurers. In principle however as long as you've selected a high enough Personal Possessions to cover all of your stuff inc two pumps then I dont see why there'd be an issue.

jeallen01

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I cannot see any special terms on medical equipment in the policybook so see no reason why it'd cause any problems but clearly Im not as experienced with the issues as you are and obviously you should check before considering switching insurers. In principle however as long as you've selected a high enough Personal Possessions to cover all of your stuff inc two pumps then I dont see why there'd be an issue.

Previous experience in trying to get definite cover for the pumps was not good until we found the Co-op. We can't afford to risk an argument if one got lost, and the thought of trying to get reimbursement would worry us a lot, especially as we would not actually own the loan unit - getting the insurance company to recognise and cover it was proving a problem. However, the Co-op do understand the situation, and so we feel relatively happy to stay with them, albeit paying a slightly higher basic premium than elsewhere and then paying a top-up to cover the pumps.


Anyway, to come back to my original post - any further suggestions for the camera & lenses insurance.

pinkteapot

Have you had a quote from the Co-op to add the camera gear to your home insurance?

I appreciate your issues in finding home insurance because of the insulin pump, but I'm not sure why it means you can't add the cameras to that policy too....?

InsideInsurance - thanks, though M&S just quoted me £578, d'oh!

InsideInsurance

pinkteapot wrote: »

thanks, though M&S just quoted me £578, d'oh!

That is the joy of insurance, who;s cheap for one isnt necessarily any good for someone else.

They're always very cheap for us and given the £15k single item limit they also remove the pain of having to list watches/ jewelry etc that goes over the normal £1-3k limit.

jeallen01

In the end, did some "dickering" with G&H and managed to get the premium down to £110 (from £153) by reviewing what I have insured and for what values. Decided that it is not worth paying for a new-for-old policy because I don't actually do that much travelling with the more expensive items and have never needed to make a claim (as I am pretty damned carefully with kit when I'm out of the house, and the Pentax & Sigma stuff is pretty robust!), and so revised the list on that basis.

Thus a number of identified/specified value items moved to the "Misc Items under £300 " category, but I then upped the number of items which are effectively covered in that category by upping the limit from £900 to £1750 - therefore, realistically, I have more kit covered for a substantially lower premium.