Have you read through your policy to see if it is secondary to your homeowner's coverage? And also, do you have agreed value or market value on the value of your collection?

I can verify this. My house burned in 2012. They gave me replacement cost for everything. For instance, that five year old laptop that is not worth $50 on ebay is worth $500 to the claim because that is what it would cost to buy a new one. For pinball machines I worked with the company to show them places to get prices (ebay, Bostonpinball, Mr pinball, etc.).

Here is my biggest piece of advice: Pinball machines should be covered under personal property. Make sure that coverage is adequate, indeed replacement value and specifically mention pinball machines to your insurance company. Here in Florida the personal property is a percentage of your coverage for the structure. Unfortunately my insurance company switched me from 50% to 35% without me knowing and that ended up costing me about $20,000 when all was said and done... My new house is waaaaaay nicer than my old house and I made sure that I have at least $180,000 of personal property insurance.

Hopefully no one else here will ever come home to an ACDC BIB that had been ON FIRE. What the fire doesn't get, the smoke does. I literally came home to find that I lost everything I owned except my car and the clothes on my back. Most importantly though, no one was hurt and my dog got out the doggie door.

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Dude...that just makes me want to cry. I'm so sorry.

IMHO>I'd be careful telling people replacement cost on homeowners will cover the pins, as this is not correct at least in my case. Mine are located in the basement and if the sump pump or septic backs up I am not covered unless I have the additional coverage which caps out at $50,000(yes I do have replacement cost on policy). My agent said if the water comes from outside or a broken pipe that I am covered(along with fire, theft, etc), but I am not covered if it comes from the sump pump or septic without the additional coverage. My problem is that getting the $50,000 extra coverage for sump pump/septic is really costly and even with it, its not enough coverage to replace pins and basement with water issues.

I'm curious, has anyone has a sump pump go out? I would think the water would only get a few inches high and maybe thats not enough to damage the pins??

Here was the response from the Collectable insurance representative on whether their insurance is secondary to any other coverage you already have:

"In the event a covered loss occurs and there is other insurance available, which would apply to the covered property, the insurance under our policy would be excess insurance over the other insurance. In no event will our policy contribute with other insurance."

So if you have a water backup event they are saying they cap the entire claim at 50k? Or they cap specific things (like collectables) at 50k in that event? Because if an entire basement gets trashed, especially with the costs to remediation if there are sewage backups that seems like really low coverage to me. But again, I am not an insurance agent.

How high the water can go depends on your particular basement. In mine I'm lucky that we live on a hill and my home doesn't even require a sump pump at all. I have seen sewer backups all the way to the top of the stairs in my in-laws house so it's certainly possible for your games to take a swim.

Exactly. We just bought a new house 2 weeks ago, so I just went through this with my agent. It's entirely dependent on how the water gets into your basement. If it comes through the walls, you're screwed without flood insurance. If a pipe bursts, or my fish tank explodes, then it is covered under the standard policy. If it's a backup of the sewer or a drain, it's only covered if you have the additional sewer / drain backup insurance. To go even further, you have to pay an additional premium if you want replacement value of the backup sewer / drain coverage.

The sewer / drain coverage isn't cheap either and the replacement cost makes it even more expensive, should you choose to go that route.

I have to admit I was kind of expecting more of a reaction to my findings from the collector insurance. Outside of the water issue (which is a big deal and I understand that) I'm honestly not seeing any real value in having the collector insurance coverage. They are secondary coverage to your homeowner's policy (unless I am misunderstanding the wording of their last response that I posted) and were unwilling to put forth their opinion of the market value of my sample that I provided. Having not read the terms of their coverage, if they have an exclusion to sewer backup like the other policies I can find no real reason to go with them at all.

They were very friendly and professional in answering my questions, I'm just not sure what you are getting for your premiums. Unless you are living without homeowner's coverage to begin with. Am I missing something??

That's the way I understood it as well and was kind of disappointed in that.

I wasn't thrilled with their vague answers in this thread to begin with. I'm just going to get extra coverage through my home owners insurance. Thank you very much for the breakdown of extra coverages that I may need. I have been planning on keeping my insurance company, but changing agents. So when I do this soon I will starting looking into to my options.

This insurance makes sense with the sump pump issue, other than that probably not. The only concerning thing is when they say they won't contribute with other insurance. If the sump pump stops, I have a claim(on a $50,000 policy) and it costs $50,000 to repair the basement and there is $40,000 in Pins I wonder if they claim insurance already paid me and it was my choice to use that moneyon home repair instead of the pins?

Remember, Insurance companies are your friend, until something goes wrong.

Viper, I appreciate your legwork in trying to get concrete examples addressed. I'm disappointed in the answers and will have to rethink whether I'll renew with Collectors when my policy is up...

Eric

The key is you are not making a new friend, you are entering into a legal agreement with them. They air commercials trying to convince you it is the first thing and it is not at all. They will usually fulfill the terms of the agreement if you have a problem but the worst time to find out what that document actually says is while the fire department is rolling their hose up in front of your house...

I am happy we finally got to the bottom of this information. I know this has been debated since way back in the RGP days and I always walked away feeling nervous that I wasn't signed up for the collector insurance. I am more comfortable with the policy I already have, but again, my policy and my company could be wildly different than what everyone else has.

I have been researching insurance coverage for my pinball machines. Here are some important things I have learned.

For machines below ground level (Basement):

1. Sewer back up is not covered for most homeowners policies (usually cap at $10,000-50,000 for entire claim)

2. American collectors Insurance and Collectibles Insurance both cover flood in a basement but not sewer back up unless the entire pinball machine is at least 6” off of the floor (ie on a riser).

I had sewer back up 6 years ago with 3 feet of water. Thankfully it was before I owned any pinball machines.

Anyone with a basement collection unless you build risers to get the machines 6” off of the ground, you will not be covered for sewer back up.

If anyone knows of another option to get sewer back up covered, please let me know.

My home owners covers my games, but it depends on the type of policy you get. There is a type that covers your contents based on depreciated value, but then there is also coverage that includes 100% replacement cost. I just went through a tornado a little over a year ago and everything was covered. I had raised my personal content coverage to $225k to cover replacing my games and they stroked me a check for the entire $225k to cover everything that was under my roof. Even if you have the kind that is based on depreciated value once you go buy back everything that was damaged they give you all the depreciated value back once you turn in receipts. The only thing I really lost was my entire comic book collection and it was because I did not have collectibles insurance on them but I still got my entire personal contents money at $225k.

The most economical "coverage" is to have check valves installed on your Storm and Sanitary sewer lines just before they leave the basement.