Insuring your collection.

[racm32]

So in early 2020 I had my hobby room broken into. The thief, who was probably not prepared for what he saw, grabbed the most valuable looking thing and moved on to the next home. We got him on security camera and he was later caught but what he had stolen was never recovered. The valuable looking box he took was a large Chrome Cases with over 200 painted 20mm moderns (nearly my entire collection of that period). They were never recovered and 10 years of work was gone like that. At the time, I posted on here about it and was contacted by several companies who donated extra product to help replace some of the minis and I was quite moved by their kindness.
Quite a few people also commented about lost collections from house fires, theft, or moving accidents. That got me thinking about insuring my collection. In the USA you can do an itemized insurance policy for stuff of a higher value then would be covered under you normal home insurance. My father has one for his vintage gun collection.
Has anyone here gotten their collection insured? If so, how did you value it? I imagine it would be the cost of the minis and then an estimate from a commission painter?

[Thargor]

Around 20 years ago I included my collection on my house insurance, they wanted a valuation and as my collection was mainly GW at the time, it was pretty easy to go to my local store with a list and ask them what it was worth.  He looked through the list quickly and asked me to come back in a week.  He valued it at £4,000 based on buying new figures and the paint to do them.  He wrote it on a business card for the store and the Insurance company accepted that.

When we renewed our insurance last year they asked about collections or individual items above £1000 in value, my wife mentioned my collection of wargaming miniatures and he just dismissed it as not worth mentioning on the policy, despite the fact that it is now at least 3 times the size it was before and contains about 10 times as much terrain.

[FierceKitty]

Don't Lloyd's promise they'll give you a policy on anything you ask them to? I remember Stanley Kubrick was seriously considering a policy lest ET life be discovered and his movie be outdated before release.

[Cubs]

I guess you photograph it in chunks, put a sensible value on each chunk and ask them to accept that. If they choose to challenge, they can then have it independently assessed, which may cost them more in the long run and be a ball ache they don't need. As long as you're not yanking them with millions, you'll probably be fine. Time spent you won't get back, of course. I used to work in car insurance and it was explained to us that insurance is there to indemnify you - ie. you are restored to the situation you were before the loss, or a financial equivalent. Thus you don't necessarily get what you paid, you get what they judge it would cost to replace.

I recall a case where someone insured a box of 20 cigars for $1,000 each, smoked them and then claimed $20,000 on the insurance. A court upheld the claim because the insurance company accepted the policy. The insurance company then successfully sued the claimant for 20 cases of arson! If I recall, the judge awarded damages of $21,000, which is pleasing.

[FierceKitty]

Oooh, I hope that's true!

[Hammers]

A very interesting and pertinent thread, I am surprised I have not seen it on the board before. The thought has however struck me, so I read what you say with interest.

Painted miniatures do not carry a great value neither does a large collection. Certain unpainted miniatures in mint condition can be fetch quite a high prise among collectors.

Sometimes when I watch Antiques Roadshow I wonder if a complete painted contained collection of, say, a War of the Roses, in 50 years time will be of a certain value.

I think I shall bury a selection of my miniatures in the back garden...

[Citizen Sade]

I think many of us might be surprised by the value of our collections if they were properly appraised. A large chunk of mine is long out of production Citadel Miniatures from the 1980s. If I ever needed to replace them, I’d have to turn to eBay or try and buy them from collectors or dealers. I doubt it’d be cheap. Throw in the pro-painted figures and you’re looking at some pretty serious money.

I recommend that everyone discusses the matter with their home insurers on renewal if not before. My home insurance, for example, is based on a specified total contents value with only certain higher value items having to be listed individually. Everything over £2,000, IIRC.

I’m working on the assumption that my collection is not one thing, but rather a bunch of things e.g. specific armies, teams, warbands. Also that none of them are worth over £2k individually. Whether my insurance company would agree is quite another thing though. Either way, having to claim for it would be a massive PITA as I wouldn’t be able to produce receipts for much of it and I don’t have a “stock list” for everything. Fingers crossed that I never have to.

[bluewillow]

Mine is insured, I had three different wargames business who sold second hand Armies and professional painted armies to value the collection, so I had estimated values to take to the insurance company.

Cherrs
Matt

[Coenus Scaldingus]

Painted miniatures do not carry a great value neither does a large collection. Certain unpainted miniatures in mint condition can be fetch quite a high prise among collectors.

A bunch of old Citadel figures will fetch a decent price regardless of whether or not they're painted; metal is easy enough to strip.

Aside from the few of those I own, however, this is definitely one of those cases where, regardless of the money received, it wouldn't really cover the sense of loss. I'm now imagining trying to replace a lost collection with the insurance money, and the pile of boxes of miniatures that equal everything I've painted over 2 decades and the unpainted material I currently own. The latter is plenty as is; add the former in and the prospect of painting those (again) is terrifying. At the same time, however, I only value it precisely because of the work I personally put into conversions and painting; something money can't exactly replace (unless it's sufficient to quit my job I suppose, so I can full-time hobby to replace everything!). In short, I'm not sure insurance would help much, but if you own more rarer models or have more commission-painted figures, it can easily add up to rather significant numbers.

[racm32]

Some good points. I agree that my value in the collection is the work I put into it but its also the games I get to enjoy with them. If insurance was sufficient to replace the cost of the models and higher a commission painter to paint them up to table standards you would be able to get the playability back. The personal connection though would be lost.

However there are many whose entire collections have been commissioned armies and who have put more money into them then time. I would think insuring those collections would be valuable.

[Hammers]

Fuck it. All my miniatures go into the coffin with *me*.

[OSHIROmodels]

Fuck it. All my miniatures go into the coffin with *me*.

Longship surely?

[has.been]

Fuck it. All my miniatures go into the coffin with *me*.

I would need a blooming big coffin.
My 'Collection' keeps changing, sell some buy some. It would be a lot of work to:-
Get it valued; Keep amending the details & getting them to pay out if the worst happens.
My view of insurance companies is (perhaps) jaundiced. A quote from Python , ' Oh, you
see you bought our 'No claims policy', so you can't make a claim!'

[Hammers]

Longship surely?

Yes! Made out of pink foam!

[Tactalvanic]

Well at least you will know where all the tomb robbers archeologists excavating your burial mound will be coming from, all no doubt wearing their LAF badges as they dig robber pits exploratory trenches..

Because they won't risk letting you have a funeral pyre.. chemicals and air pollution etc, no,no, nice big mound in someone's garden and give you a few weeks to rest, ascend and any possible curses to dissipate..

That aside its interesting question, that I had not recently considered separate to the house due to having to i guess having to get some sorts of valuation, cataloging and admit some of the actual costs..