[Gemini-Phoenix]

Interesting stuff...

Originally Posted by gurpswoo1

What type of insurance do you do?

Dovetail insurance do not do independent insurance for collectable items but they cover them on top of their normal house insurance. The reason for this is that the covering cost is likely less than £50 a year. The admin and paper work costs involved would not make it financially viable unless they had a huge turnover of new policies, that's not likely to happen in a niche market.

So you would need to take out new house insurance with them.

I can understand this. You wouldn't just insure one item in your entire house, no matter how valuable it is. You'd want to insure everything you have in your house first, and then add the collectible's on top of that as points of interest. It makes sense I suppose...

So what does it cover?

I told him I was a video game collector, the first thing I noticed was that he didn't laugh, snigger or make any sort of remark or sound. He was completely serious and understood how valuable the items were to us, he has seen every type of collectable including collectable underwear.

Now i'm quite liberal when it comes to other collector's, but collectible underwear? Seriously? I've heard some things in my time as a collector, but never heard of anyone collecting underwear! Lol.

I laugh, but that underwear collector may be reading this trying to understand why we would collect video games...

The policy is really designed for the collection as a whole, for example if there was a fire, theft or natural disaster. Accidental damaged is also covered but this would be for multiple or higher value items. This is because of the excess.

The access is usually £250, now this is a problem for claiming smaller value.

So in other words, if you do damaged an item then make sure it's either high in value or you damaged multiple items.

E.g. Say you had a VGA graded game worth £1000, you dropped it by mistake and there was a crack in the case.

As the value has dropped because the case is cracked, this is considered accidental damaged. They would cover the whole item minus the £250 excess.

Accidental damage isn't the major issue here. Most people would just write it off as an accident and move along with their lives. I know i've accidentally damaged one or two games in my time through careless handling, but at the end of the day it was my fault. I suppose it is different if you have young kids around and they're disobedient and touch things they're not supposed to, but generally speaking the major reasons for having insurance is to cover you if you're a victim of fire, flood, or theft I would think!

Plus, single items are much easier to protect, whereas an entire room of collectible games is much harder. You can perhaps try and rescue a few select items in a hurry, but it's much harder to rescue several thousand items

How does a claim work and how do you establish the value.

Dovetail understood that keeping all the receipt is not going to be possible, they determine the value at the claim process, they ask an independent source for either verification or current market value. I informed him that you will be hard pressed to find someone who sell sealed games professionally for market value and the only source I could think of is VGA in the US for an estimate. He did say they would ask other collectors if all else failed.

Keeping receipts is unrealistic to be honest. I try, but I would say only about a quarter of my collection I have kept the receipts for. Add to that the fact that a majority of items may have been bought on forums or eBay, or even traded with fellow collector's.

In our hobby, there aren't really any independant sources. It's not like dealing with antiques or gold - There aren't really any experts per se, only other collector's. Like you, I would have probably said the same thing. Hell, I AM the fricking expert, so I know how hard pressed you'd be to find another! Lol!

VGA is all well and good, but I doubt they would have the knowledge to be able to give values of every single game you may have owned. Add to that the fact that they probably wouldn't have the time or incentive to help you in these circumstances, and they're knowledge of PAL games may also be lacking compared to native US games

All the more reason why specialist collector's websites like CE.O and SGH are important, and one of the reasons why SGH exists!

What's the sort of house or content you deal with?
He said they would normally cover mid to high end houses with a minimum of £10,000 collection. Premiums are usually in the £500 pa mark.

Well that's definitely me then! I would gladly pay £500pa to insure my collection. That's less than 1% of its value, so I think that is fair. However, this is provided they would pay out what I say my items are worth if anything happened to them.



For me, flooding is not such a problem as I live fairly high up above a valley. If we were to somehow get flooded, then it is more likely my house would collapse from subsidence.

As my house has a flat roof, wind damage and water leakage is a high priority for me. The reason our house has a flat roof is because the original roof was blown away in the great storm of 1987 (We weren't living here at the time), so obviously if that were to happen again... We don't get twisters here, but with the ever-changing climate, it may be a possibility in the future. Also, general wear and tear on the roof and rotting building materials could lead to water leaking through. Not very likely, but also a possibility

Fire is a high priority, although I would say a rare circumstance. However, all it would take is a misplaced cigarette or neglected candle...

I would say my number one concern though is theft. Obviously high profile collector's with high profile games of varying value and rarity are prime targets for theft, either organised or chancers. I am always paranoid about leaving the house unattened, and have various anti-intruder devices secured in the home, but that still isn't going to deter some individuals, and once it's out, it's lost forever. In a way, I think theft is worse, because you know your treasured collection is still out there somewhere...