Photo Insurance

[Reza Gorji]

I did a search for insurance for our gear and did not see anything that stood out. I was wondering what BPN member do for insuring their expensive gear.

Right now I have a no fault all risk policy on my gear from the insurance company that does my house and auto.

I think this topic will be of interest to BPN members.

[Jamie Strickland]

this seems to be the most common thing, I looked around for a while before deciding on this as well

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50184&highlight=chubb

[Kurt Bowman]

I know many people will automatically say NANPA. But do some research before goig off an paying high premiums. First question is do you sel your work? If the answer is no, then you can do something called "scheduling" it on your homeowners or renters policy. When you schedule your property, you cover it at stated value with no deductable. Meaning if it is worth $1000, you cover it for $1000. It is also covered for accidental breakage, etc. If you sell your work, you cannot do this. However, you can easily get an inland marine policy which is pretty close to the same thing and is usually much less expensive than the insurance offered by NANPA. Just thought I might offer this up since I used to be an agent and still have a lot of family in that business.

[Jamie Strickland]

Kurt the insurance is not from NANPA it is actually an inland marine policy from Chubb, the thing is you need to be a NANPA member to get it from them which for me is a waste of money as I have no use for the rest of NANPA to be honest

I dont disagree with you though, if I could get the same policy from Chubb or someone else without the NANPA membership I would do it

[Jerry Clement]

Being from Canada, here is a different take why it is mandatory to carry a "All Peril's Rider" insurance policy for photography gear, and why I would never be without it. Over the years I have had a policy rider on my house insurance that covers my Photography equipment. In 30 years I have had 2 B&E's at 2 different residences. They were both covered under my policy rider that replaced all my equipment that was lost. The last claim though is the most interesting claim that I made with my insurance company. This goes back about 15 years ago, and I won't get in to specifics, however I was involved in a transaction that saw me receive a certified check for a quite large sum of money involving photography gear that I was selling. The check turned out to be bogus and this scam involved a large group of sellers in the Calgary area. In fact it was a news story that saw me interviewed on a local TV station's news-cast. Bottom line is that I was kind of sick to my stomach thinking of the hit that I had taken. A couple days down the road, I realized that maybe there was a chance this equipment could be covered under my rider policy, as my rider is described as a all-peril's-rider-policy. A call to my insurance company confirmed it, and 2 weeks later I had a check that covered the loss of my equipment. Gotta love insurance!

[Bill Coatney]

I would be very hesistant to tie any photographic business insurance on gear to a homeowner's policy. You never know if the carrier would pay for a loss and then cancel the policy for not only the gear but the house as well. Seen it happen in the past.

A good friend has the NANPA insurance and made a claim-- they paid with no hassle and they recommend them highly.

I opted to carry a business policy with American Family that acts as an inland marine type of policy and also provides liability for myself and any 'second shooter(s)" for events and if I ever started doing workshops.

as they say-- your mileage may vary

[MikeCornwell]

Chubb/Rand/NANPA insurance - wow!!

This was not how I'd planned on gradually upgrading my gear. I've been lusting after a 400 DO and Mark IV, but...

I'm completely amazed. I did an incredibly stupid thing. I left ALL of my camera gear (except for the 600mm) in the back of a van and the door wasn't secured. After about an hour down the freeway someone was driving by and trying to get my attention. The door was open - somewhere along the freeway in southern California there were a couple of soft bags of what I thought was a nice rig (MkIII, 40D, 70-200, 24-70, 16-35 (2.8's), fisheye, 10-400 and lots of smaller kit. I doubt if even the batteries survived. (at least I haven't gotten a call yet from the CHP or lawyers about the accident I may have caused).

Needless to say I was panicked and called Chubb/Nanpa/Rand on Memorial Day weekend. All went smoothly and they sent me a check. Doesn't cover all of it since I "had" to get a MarkIV and 7D to replace the MkIII and 40D and some of the newer lenses but it's worth every penny I ever spent to have insurance I couldn't see why I'd ever need. I've been in many places around US and world and never lost any camera equipment and never even worried about it.

One tip though, if you bought a body for $4500, leave the insured value at $4500. If you do have to ever make a claim you'll want whatever newest body or lens is out there. Don't drop the insured values as I did every year thinking - oh the replacement value is now...

It costs a bit more as they insure by $ value but replacing the body is what you'll be doing, not buying whatever older body you had.

Also they didn't drop me or raise my rates. Of course if I ever have to make a claim again ...

Plus after going through receipts to see what I'd paid for what I was amazed to see how much I paid for very slow 1GB and 2GB cards in the past. The 2 x 32gb cards I bought are probably equal in capacity to all of the memory I've ever purchased and blazingly fast :-)