Nataline VF
United States
San Diego
California
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A lot of folks here own large collections of games which we have spent hours and unspoken amounts of money accumulating. I'm sure many of us have in our collection a few prized OOP, rare, limited edition, or just plain expensive games. Has anyone out there looked into getting their game collection insured under a separate policy in case of theft/fire/flood?
Most insurance companies require appraisals. Who on earth would be qualified to appraise a collection of boardgames? 
It almost seems like a no-brainer. If you could insure your game collection against everything but normal wear and tear, wouldn't you? Several people here have posted about bright red Kool Aid spills which destroyed a game. If our games were insured against such incidents and the insurance company was [ROFLOL] honest and fair, life would be a lot less stressfeul.
Nataline
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Jody Ludwick
United States
Indiana
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Once a year I video record everything in our house.
After the initial recording of anything and everything we owned, which took several days to accomplish, I now only take the video tape out of the safe deposit box at the bank once a year and do a casual sweep around the entire house.
I figure if our house goes up in flames, I have a record of ALL my games... and the other stuff too.
We do not include the games in our Personal Articles Policy.
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Jim Paprocki
United States
Green Bay
Wisconsin
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I think my honest truth is that if I did lose my collection to theft or flood or fire, I would probably feel the need to replace only a very small portion of it. My collection has gotten large enough that it is plainly obvious to all that most games won't even hit the table in the course of a year. In my mind, it's not worth insuring. And if my house goes up in flames, I don't think that I'll be shedding a tear over Republic of Rome.
What is the sound of hundreds of screaming meeples? 
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Pierce Ostrander
United States
Albuquerque
New Mexico
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I could see how someone who has a 500 game collection might want to spell it out in a rider and pay a little extra to cover it. Could be considered a high value item like an expensive piece of jewelry, which usually require riders. I own a guitar that has special insurance... it is an extremely expensive item built by a close friend (http://www.ryanguitars.com/).
Pricey little dude, and mine was an early build...
Foob
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Mike Pranno
United States
Chardon
Ohio
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Yes, I insured my game collection once it reached a pre-determined overall value. In actuality, adding the rider to our current home insurance policy was dirt cheap. And I try to keep an MS Access database of the collection up to date in case something DOES happen.
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Seth Owen
United States
Norwich
Connecticut
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Most home insurance limits coverage for collections to some set amount (often $1,000) that's almost always too little to cover the replacement cost. However, you can usually buy a rider that would cover them. I don't have one, myself, but I'm considering getting one. not so much for the games, because I'd probably only replace 20-25% if I lost everything, but my books, which would represent a greater loss.
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Melissa
Australia
Parkville
Vic
May you find the Perfect Shoe! xxx
Mostly offline, but trying.
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Our games are covered by our household contents insurance. We have to specify a value for them, but don't need to provide a valuation or anything.
We maintain(*) a spreadsheet with a listing of games owned & their approximate retail prices. It also contains (on other worksheets) other strangely expensive items like an itemisation of my daughter's train set (**). We've also listed our CDs and DVDs the same way.
It would help, of course, if the spreadsheet of what we own wasn't stored on the eminently stealable notebook computer - if anyone stole our DVDs, they'd take the PC too. 
I have been meaning to do an insurance video, or at least attack the house with the digital camera. But that would mean I'd have to tidy up first...
(*) for 'maintain' read 'oops we should update that list sometime soon'
(**) I am a completist and collector by nature. I stopped when I inventoried the train set's retail value at somewhere over $1600.
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Karl Deckard
United States
Seattle
Washington
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Absolutely. I have been playing games my whole life and have accumulated quite a few games. To be honest, if they were lost in a fire, I would be devastated because many of them could never be replaced (even from Ebay). Of course, we have to take precautions because the collection is vdry valuable. We insured it for an amount roughly calculated by myself, because I am aware of the cost of each item. We were not required to supply an itemized list, but we take our own precautions. We document everything using photos and keep those photos elsewhere (so the evidence of the collection doesn't also burn in the fire). It'2 relatively simple to do and well worth the price. The best thing to do would be to describe the contents of your collection to your own insurace provider and ask them how to best protect your investment.
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Chris
United States
Ronkonkoma
New York
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The few times I had tried to get a rider for my games, my insurance carrier said it was 'impossible' to get -- they had riders for baseball cards, jewelry, stamps, coins, but not 'other collectibles'
Of course, at the time, I was living in an apartment; now I have a home - perhaps those options are open now!
Nevertheless, I'd love to learn who some of the people that responded positively here USE as their insurance company (are they typically smaller shops, or the big guys, like Allstate, State Farm, etc.)
Thanks!
Chris
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Patrick Dignam
United States
Lithia
FL
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I walked through the house with a camera as well. Though if the worst happens I might grab my copy of "Up Front!" and "Banzai" while running for the door.
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Joe Casadonte
United States
Media
Pennsylvania
The compass always points to Terrapin.
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I have nothing that's not replaceable, but some things would take an awful lot of time to replace. Like the 1000+ hours of live music I have on CD and my hard drive. I joked with a friend a few weeks ago that in event of an emergency, I'd be stuffing CDs into game boxes as I ran out the door (assuming the cats were safe, of course).
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Pierre-Luc Thiffault
Canada
St-Laurent
Québec
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In my case, I got everything on word documents. Of course it takes a long time to do if you havn't started typing stuff. Once it's done, its very easy and takes no time at all to update it whenever I buy stuff.
It was a lot of work, but it's easier than trying to remember everything you had in a short period of time if and when something actually would happend. I say better be safe than sorry.
That's my thoughts on the subject. It makes it easier. Life can be hard enough as it is. One less thing to worry about.
dwarf
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Mike Siggins
England
Bexhill
SUSSEX
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I am with mcpranno. When I had nearly 2,000 games not only did I insure them, but I was obliged to by the insurance company (UK). Now I have less than 250, I don't really worry about it and neither do they. Sure there are 'irreplaceable items', but they are covered under the general policy limit. I think the idea of keeping an up to date datanase/Excel list with purchased and current values is a very good idea.
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Brian Schlichting
United States
Elk River
Minnesota
http://www.popebrain.com
Have you seen me?
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We are so close to having that complete inventory here on BGG, maybe we need to ask Aldie for a couple of extra fields for private use.
Of course, then we may have to insure our BGG profile. 
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Jared Heath
United States
Dallas
Texas
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Last time I talked to my insurance, they claimed all "collections" other than the few they break out and require floaters on are covered under the general policy at 100%. That is USAA, though.
They require floaters on things like baseball cards, stamps, etc. Games are not considered "collections". They are considered general items.
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