Insurance

[JesseMiner]

Everybody with large collections should get them insured.

Nathan brings up a good point. Is everyone insured?

Nothing sucks more than having a large amount of CDs stolen or lost and having to pay for their replacements out of your own pocket. I'm sure this has happened at one time or another to most of you.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but either homeowner's or renter's insurance should cover your collection, whether it is in your house or not. A book of CDs stolen out of your car will NOT be covered by car insurance.

Tip: Make sure you keep a detailed list of your collection. If stolen, many insurance companies will offer some flat amount per CD (like $12), but if you can provide them with the specific list and even better accompanied by online sources with prices, they might be willing to cover the full amount (many CDs we buy cost more than the flat rate they offer).

I had this exact thing happen when the CD player in my car was stolen, and I had to get the 12 CDs that were in it replaced. They were only covered by my car insurance because they were in a bolted-down piece of electronics in the car. If they'd been loose in cases, they wouldn't have been covered. I was offered $12/CD, but since a few were imports (up to $30/CD in some cases), I provided them the list of CDs with online price references. They either tracked them down and bought them for me or gave me the money to buy the rest myself.

Granted the insurance is only really worth it if a lot of CDs get stolen as you'll more than likely have to pay a deductable, which could range from hundreds to over a thousand dollars depending on your plan.

Be prepared!

Jesse

[Nate Dogg]

I have the CDs covered with my renters insurance. They offer a flat fee, $12-$15 per CD I think, I need to look it up. They are insured at replacement cost. That works well if you buy a lot of used CDs at a discount, not as well for imports. The renters insurance protects me from things like fire and other disasters.

Like Jesse said, detailed records are key. I have a spreadsheet. Video is also good documentation.

Another thing that I do is that I very rarely take my CDs out of the house. DJing from original CDs is risky these days. I know of three local DJs who had hundred of CDs stolen from their cars. In my opinion, the value of having slightly better sound via the original CD is not worth the risk of losing a large portion of your collection via theft.

[ScottieK]

Actualy my car insurance covers anything stolen from my car, bolted down or not. Makes me feel safe about leaving my stuff in my truck.

[Toon Town Dave]

An excellent and often overlooked topic.

I used to work in a coin/stamp/sports card store and often provided quotes for replacing collections. Most people with small-ish (in terms of value) colections generally didn't have much trouble but people with extraordinary collections often had a lot of hastle, particularly in the early 90's when sports cards were a big thing and some of the claims were less than believeable and insurance companies were cracking down.

For those of us with smaller collections (a couple hundred CDs or less), it's probably not a big deal with regular homeowners insurance ... although I stll take comfort in the fact that one of my 3 dogs is territorial and doesn't like strangers.

For larger collections, I think it is worth checking with your insurance broker, you may need a rider to cover an extraordinarily large collection. Also if you have any rare or valuable CD's or 45's or anything that is not really a commodity item, a rider may be necessary.

In any case it is a good idea to keep an inventory of your collection (and all your valuables) and provide a regularly updated list to your insurance broker. If anything were to happen, it reduces doubt in the accuracy of your claim. The inventory can also be used when negotiating insurance to ensure that it covers what you expect.

Read your coverage carefully. The owner of one store I worked at thought he had good coverage but found out after a break-in that the conditions of the coverage was not so good. Specifically merchandise was not covered in a break-in. Fortunately in this situation the loss was small thanks to the the theives being Darwin award candidates but the owner promptly changed insurance providers.

[gatorgal]

Thanks for the advice, fellas.

Just starting this DJ thing and can use all the help I can get.

Tina

[Mr Awesomer]

At roughly 25¢ a CDR, backing up your collection and leaving your originals in a safe secure location is the cheapest/hastle free way of insuring your collection.

[julius]

CD-R backup doesn't provide protection against fire or other disaster, though. Unless you store all your CD-R out of the house.

Insurance is always wise. Besides, who wants to lose all those liner notes? I would want those back if I lost all my shit.

[Ron]

The insurance might not cover the CDs if they are used for a business. (djing). But you might not want to ask. Actually, since I'm not carrying the CDs themselves anymore, that point is probably mute. I DJ from compilations.

[Nate Dogg]

At roughly 25¢ a CDR, backing up your collection and leaving your originals in a safe secure location is the cheapest/hastle free way of insuring your collection.

I am working on backing up everything to CDR and I only DJ from compilations.

That being said, in the event of a fire/tornado that wipes out my entire collection, I would rather pay a little more in renter's insurance each month and get a check for $15 x # of CDs I own.

The cost is not too much, I need to figure how much a let everybody know. My renter's insurance is bundled with my auto insurance.

[Nate Dogg]

The insurance might not cover the CDs if they are used for a business. (djing). But you might not want to ask. Actually, since I'm not carrying the CDs themselves anymore, that point is probably mute. I DJ from compilations.

The key is to let the insurance company know what CDs you have and what you use them for. I was real specific, I told them that my CDs had to be covered and it was added to my policy, you can't assume things. Your rates might be different if the collection is classified as a business expense, but somebody will still insure it.

Documentation is also important, if you have never taken pictures/videos of your collection or compiled a list, insurance is a good reason to do so.

[julius]

http://www.readerware.com/

Cool device for creating a database of things you own. Scans the bar code/ISBN, automatically knows what the item is.

[Lawrence]

At roughly 25¢ a CDR, backing up your collection and leaving your originals in a safe secure location is the cheapest/hastle free way of insuring your collection.

Nathan mentioned this thread when I told him about a nightmare I coincidentally had just the other night.

You know the old saw that you can't die in your dreams...? Well, in my nigthmare, I had a palm pilot/cellphone in my pocket that suddenly gave off this unique alarm. I looked at it to see it was the "your home is getting burglarized: GO HOME NOW" alarm: an amazing feature I did not know came with palmpilots. But it was a dream, so I just freaked out instead of ponder how far technology had come.

I went home (my car broke down in a swamp, of course, which, of course, Austin does not have, and which, of course, I had to trod through to get home) to find that I was too late and that my stereo had been stolen. I have a nice stereo, and I was pissed, but my reaction was more like "damn, this is inconvenient" than a " HOLY SHIT" freakout one might expect.

Then I thought about my CDs, and shouted, "HOLY SHIT, MY CDs!!!!" I ran to the back closet, where I now keep my record albums (but not my CDs... but it was a dream, so they were supposed to be there, if only for dramatic build-up between the thought of them and the discovery), and all but one of 20 or so books of CDs were gone. Empty shelves. Horror shook through me, I felt faint and furious at the same time, I felt myself falling, and I woke up shouting. I could not get back to sleep.

My $5000-$6000 stereo system getting stolen is no big deal. Some mope invading my home is acceptable. But my CDs get jacked... and I die. (Only in my dream, Falty, so don't get your hopes up. ).

The gist: I agree with Reugen about self-insruing with CD-Rs and keeping the originals home and secure. But when you insure them, insure them in your home, as well. (The CD-Rs were stolen along with the originals).

I actually did have all my CDs stolen before in 1997 when I had only two binder books full (and that was, by far, the biggest collection in Chicago at the time). Fortunately, I had all the empty jewel cases with the back liner notes downstairs in the basement so I could recontruct a list of the CDs that were stolen. I sent the list in to the homeowners insurance company, and, as Jesse said, they replaced some and paid me for the rest. Some of the replacements were not the same CDs, but approximations of the title--or they would send the original issue to replace a remastered re-release. But it was a HUGE relief and MUCH better than just losing them all.

[gatorgal]

Lawrence - thanks for the advice and the highly entertaining dream sequence.

If I were you I'd lay off the munchies before you go to bed!

Tina

[Lawrence]

http://www.readerware.com/

Cool device for creating a database of things you own. Scans the bar code/ISBN, automatically knows what the item is.

Great idea! Have you used it? Does it work, or does it just get about half of the CDs right?

[julius]

My friends use it and they say it is 100% accurate.