Does anyone here know of a company that insures game collections... And has evidence they actually pay on claims?

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Came over hear after seeing @Nintegageo's other thread.

In general, homeowner's insurance will not cover collectibles. I would be very skeptical of any company that says you're covered, especially if you haven't submitted detailed item lists with value estimates and pictures. If this is not in writing in your policy, you don't have it, no matter what the rep says on the phone. For a real world example, when my basement flooded, USAA refused to replace any videogame related items, even with documentation and proof of purchase.

After that sad event, I purchased collectible insurance with a company called American Collector's Insurance through my account at USAA. They required documentation of all items with overview pictures of the collection and detailed pictures of anything worth more than $1,000. I now have extensive Excel files listing every game I own with estimated value (I really need to update that... ugh).

Hope this helps.

Edited June 15, 2023 by DoctorEncore

[DefaultGen | 5,426]

4 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

Came over hear after seeing @Nintegageo's other thread.

In general, homeowner's insurance will not cover collectibles. I would be very skeptical of any company that says you're covered, especially if you haven't submitted detailed item lists with value estimates and pictures. If this is not in writing in your policy, you don't have it, no matter what the rep says on the phone. For a real world example, when my basement flooded, USAA refused to replace any videogame related items, even with documentation and proof of purchase.

After that sad event, I purchased collectible insurance with a company called American Collector's Insurance through my account at USAA. They required documentation of all items with overview pictures of the collection and detailed pictures of anything worth more than $1,000. I now have extensive Excel files listing every game I own with estimated value (I really need to update that... ugh).

Hope this helps.

If your sealed Super Mario Bros is destroyed you will get $4.99 so you can rebuy it on Wii Virtual Console

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

6 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

If your sealed Super Mario Bros is destroyed you will get $4.99 so you can rebuy it on Wii Virtual Console

Too close to the truth for comfort.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

Funny this thread just popped up... I was just evacuated for 12 days from my house due to a wild fire and that shit started one street over from me. I live in a sprawling, heavily wooded suburb area and someone was burning (when there was a fire ban on) and it got out of control - Over 150 homes lost. I had just got up from after a nightshift and it was about 3pm. I let my dog out and see a bit of smoke over the horizon and just assume some dumbass is having a small fire. Next thing I know, big, black, billows of smoke are just over the tree line so I grabbed my cat and dog and got out of there. Due to the very poor design of our area there are only two streets out that are really close together to get out onto the main road. Even in the short time I collected our pets up (wife was at work), both sides of the street were on fire getting out of there. 

 

After almost two weeks I was able to return home and assure that my house/collection was undamaged. The wind, although bad for the overall fire, saved our house due to the direction. Here is a picture of the burn area with my house in blue on the far left. The red X is where the fire started and the orange lines are the two streets out. It really was surreal... you see this shit on TV and never expect it to happen to you, particularly in a marine climate at the end of May! Needless to say, if my house was lost, so was my collection and I doubt I would have got much, if anything, from insurance. 

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Andy_Bogomil

[GPX | 1,372]

My genuine query about this issue is in the determination of today’s “market value”. There’s clearly 2 sorts of market happening:

- eBay/free market

- Heritage Auctions and other auction houses. 
 

Market value

= average(eBay + HA) price
   ————————————

                       2

??

 

                     

[RH | 4,951]

Here's my question, moving away from the idea of collectibles and games, but how is anything of small size but excessive value insurable.

For instance, I assume art is insurable.  What if, hypothetically, "Grandpa knew Picasso" and we in our family have a small painting conservatively valued at $5m?

Ok, let's assume we're bad people.  We hide the Picasso and burn down an old family house and claim the painting is in there.  We lie and collect $3m in insurance.

Then, 20... 50... 75 years later, the family brings out the painting and it's now worth $50m (ignoring inflation).   Grandpa made $3m but we still hold the painting and it's long been forgotten that we committed insurance fraud.

You can change the subject matter and the numbers a bit, but if it's small enough and insurable, you can fake the destruction of anything and, with enough time, you (or your family) can turn around and sell it.

My specific question is this--this fraud may not be common but it's plausible and easy to do for the person who would be willing to try it.  How do insurance companies account for this and mitigate it?  Are there similar, insured markets that the game/small collector market could mimic?  Maybe insurance for distribution centers of products, or small businesses?

I feel like this is a problem with a solution, and I also feel like it's been solved before.  Just not for collectibles.

Edited June 29, 2023 by RH

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

On 6/28/2023 at 11:38 PM, GPX said:

My genuine query about this issue is in the determination of today’s “market value”. There’s clearly 2 sorts of market happening:

- eBay/free market

- Heritage Auctions and other auction houses. 
 

Market value

= average(eBay + HA) price
   ————————————

                       2

??

 

                     

They ask you to do all the legwork and submit values, then they check to see if they are reasonable. If a company is focused on collectibles, then they know all about eBay and prominent auction houses and they have in-house or contract experts for each type of item they insure. They aren't going to give you the gem mint price unless you can prove it's worth that BEFORE the damage occurs. They are going to give you the average price for an average item. You may also have some below average quality items, but at some point, it is not worth their time to confirm the value of every $50 object in your collection. It is, however, worth their time to check and see if you have a graded 10/10 first-print, high-value item. So basically, they aren't going to give you the high-end, Heritage Auction price of something unless you can prove ahead of time that it is worth that.

On 6/29/2023 at 4:08 PM, RH said:

Here's my question, moving away from the idea of collectibles and games, but how is anything of small size but excessive value insurable.

For instance, I assume art is insurable.  What if, hypothetically, "Grandpa knew Picasso" and we in our family have a small painting conservatively valued at $5m?

Ok, let's assume we're bad people.  We hide the Picasso and burn down an old family house and claim the painting is in there.  We lie and collect $3m in insurance.

Then, 20... 50... 75 years later, the family brings out the painting and it's now worth $50m (ignoring inflation).   Grandpa made $3m but we still hold the painting and it's long been forgotten that we committed insurance fraud.

You can change the subject matter and the numbers a bit, but if it's small enough and insurable, you can fake the destruction of anything and, with enough time, you (or your family) can turn around and sell it.

My specific question is this--this fraud may not be common but it's plausible and easy to do for the person who would be willing to try it.  How do insurance companies account for this and mitigate it?  Are there similar, insured markets that the game/small collector market could mimic?  Maybe insurance for distribution centers of products, or small businesses?

I feel like this is a problem with a solution, and I also feel like it's been solved before.  Just not for collectibles.

Insurance fraud is not a new idea and they have plenty of ways to combat these type of things. If something is extraordinarily valuable, they simply will not insure it without appropriate precautions. They may require proof of fireproof or waterproof storage as well as a security system. They could even require you to store it in a maximum security bank vault. That bank would then also have insurance against damage and theft. These companies won't take on risk if there is not appropriate reward and a high likelihood of overall profit. Additionally, they have sophisticated investigation techniques to find evidence of foul play. They would gladly spend $2 million dollars on a detailed investigation to save $5 million in payouts. They could then sue the person who committed fraud to get their money back, possibly forcing sale of the valuable items.

A good analogy for something that would be difficult to trace would be a stamp collection. Small, easily destroyed, easily hidden, difficult to trace. I don't know much about stamps, but I guarantee they have some strict requirements for storage and tracking if they're going to insure them for $10 million. I'm also pretty sure they keep a ledger of all large payouts and would continue to track auction houses and private dealers for hundreds of years if necessary to reclaim their money.

I'm sure there is more, but you get the idea.

[inasuma | 1,203]

I’ve heard quite good things about collectibles insurance services. zandg emporium on YouTube just did a vid about it actually. I’m probably going to go through them in the future just because my collection has grown so much. 

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

1 hour ago, inasuma said:

I’ve heard quite good things about collectibles insurance services. zandg emporium on YouTube just did a vid about it actually. I’m probably going to go through them in the future just because my collection has grown so much. 

That company looks good to me, Im gonna shoot them an email. 

[Estil | 1,265]

I pay $35 to Liberty Mutual a month for $20K worth of tenant insurance...though I don't think $20K would go near far enough.  The main problem is that most of what I have (baseball card collection, retro video game collection/consoles, reference book collection, and other things) is tied to sentimental value/memories.  Not to mention some of these are next to impossible to find, such as the 1989 and 1988 Kentucky Wildcats Collegiate Collection sets (I had to wait YEARS for even one set to show up; of course there's billions of the North Carolina ones), a 1982 book on the history of the small town I grew up in during the 90s (the only copy I knew of was in my local public library so for one to show up on Ebay was a miracle), just to name a few examples.  Then there's my most treasured possessions of all, me and my late wife's diplomas/degrees, as well as of course her and our first cat together Tweetie's ashes.   A lot of that stuff you can't really replace.

Luckily I live in about the safest kind of apt and building possible in my area and it has sprinklers and I'm careful to keep a low profile too.

[inasuma | 1,203]

18 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

That company looks good to me, Im gonna shoot them an email. 

good luck!