Re: A Sad Collectors story and food for though.
It's something I have been researching for a number of years, only to be told the same as you - Collectible items have to have special insurance and aren't covered under standard home insurance
The thing is, especially for the likes of me and you, many of our collectible games are still in sealed condition. Now a lot of these are worth much more than their original RRP now, especially some older games like SNES or N64 etc, but like you say, where the insurance company is concerned these are worth peanuts, despite the fact that some can be worth hundreds of Pounds!
Newer games can be insured under an old for new policy, where they will pay out the cost to purchase a new copy of a game currently available. Unfortunately, it's impossible trying to get through to these people that sealed retro games are technically still brand new, and the cost of replacing them with a like for like item is much more than what they believe - That's even if you COULD find another in the same condition! I can safely say that a vast majority of my sealed games are possibly one of a kind and the last surviving sealed copy, so these would be irreplaceable
I would really want an itemised insurance policy, where each item is given an estimated value, and I pay a percentage of that for insurance. Even if you only insured a select minority of your collection, say items over £50, then that would at least be a little peace of mind that your rarer and more valuable games are insured for what they are worth, rather than the pittance that some copy of Shrek 2 for GameCube is worth...
Obviously if I have twenty or so sealed N64 games which are each worth over £100 each, i'd be keen to insure them for the price that it would cost me to replace them in the same condition, rather than the cost of a cart only copy on eBay!
I personally believe that these sort of things should be insured for their current market resale value. Eg, I know that a sealed copy of Paper Mario for the N64 is worth between £400-£600, so therefore i'd want to insure it for that much in the same way that you would a family heirloom or antique. Why should a collectible video game be any different? If you had a painting or vase or other trinket lying around the house which was worth that much, you'd be keen to add it to the home insurance, so why not your collection? The condition, age, and availability of certain things is sometimes what makes them valuable, be it an antique, work of art, vintage teapot, or a retro video game kept in pristne condition
If a fire or flood ravished my home, I would lose more than my collection. I would lose my investment for the future, but not only that, I would have lost ten years of my life which I spent collecting these things, not to mention the money I had spent.
I can completely sympathise with the Australian guy who had his entire collection wasted by the recent floods. I can personally say that I would not have the courage to sift through my destroyed belongings and see the devestation, and it would honestly break me more than anything! It would be heart wrenching, so I think this guy has a lot of guts to do what he's done and to sort through the wreckage and post pictures of it up on the internet! I hope he gets some kind of compensation for his efforts, as he was just a normal guy like you or I who was happy collecting and had it all taken away from him through no fault of his own!
|