Insuring a collection of Valuable items

torty900

This may have been covered before, but I'd very much appreciate any up-to-date experiences.

If a collector builds a valuable collection over many years AND the collection varies within each year as individual items get sold or new one bought, it's a real hassle to have to keep informing any insurance company of each change.

Does anyone know of an insurer that will accept either an overall limit to the collection value, or perhaps an overall limit with only items over a specific value itemised? (The individual limit would need to be relatively high, say £10k).

As discussed elsewhere, most of the online applications seem to cherry-pick the more straightforward cases.

Thanks in anticipation.

Brambling

You can get insurance companies who specialise in collections.  It may be worth going to see a insurance broker and getting their advise especially if it's a high value collection 

Insurance companies wouldn't necessarily pay out of you are underinsured 

DullGreyGuy

torty900 said:

This may have been covered before, but I'd very much appreciate any up-to-date experiences.

If a collector builds a valuable collection over many years AND the collection varies within each year as individual items get sold or new one bought, it's a real hassle to have to keep informing any insurance company of each change.

Does anyone know of an insurer that will accept either an overall limit to the collection value, or perhaps an overall limit with only items over a specific value itemised? (The individual limit would need to be relatively high, say £10k).

As discussed elsewhere, most of the online applications seem to cherry-pick the more straightforward cases.

Thanks in anticipation.

So the total collection is £10k or individual items in the collection are over £10k each?

Are any items a "set", if so what is the combined value of the most expensive set?

What are the items?

M&S offer up to £15,000 for any single unspecified item or set but no option to declare higher. For valuables (jewellery, watches, precious metals, art) there is an inner limit of £50,000 on the aggregate value of all of them 

Brambling said:

You can get insurance companies who specialise in collections.  It may be worth going to see a insurance broker and getting their advise especially if it's a high value collection 

Insurance companies wouldn't necessarily pay out of you are underinsured 

Yes and no... you can get specialist insurance but if they are kept in your home you need to inform your Home insurers irrespective of if they are insured elsewhere or not. Your basic run of the mill insurer isn't set up to do this so you will end up with your items insured twice whilst in the home. 

Lets say you had a £50,000 Rolex, whilst you many have a specialist Watch insurance for if its stolen off your wrist whilst out your home insurers will want to know as someone may spot it, tail you and then break into the home to get it. The watch insurer will pay out on the watch but the Home insurer would have to pay out for the damage to the home and anything else they take whilst they are there. As a consequence the premiums have to be uplifted even if insured elsewhere. 

torty900

To clarify, the example of £10k was for an individual item within a broader collection value of (say) £100k. They're only possible values (as the Rolex item illustrates) to illustrate the challenge.

One further point is how to value: bought at auction an item may well be incomplete (require restoration), and the retail replacement cost would be significantly higher (double?). Looking at the prices of almost any antique will illustrate the challenge of realistic valuation.

Any further comments are welcomed, especially the limits imposed by specific insurers (as the M&S example).

theoretica

Are there any specialist insurers for whatever the collection is of?  I am thinking of my musical instrument insurance, for instance.

torty900

There used to be an insurer who dealt with these collections, and the name was included in a journal of the society, but no longer I'm afraid. There must be many who have a similar requirement, whether it be paintings, jewelry, ceramics etc.