Insurance

I was reading elsewhere about a photographer who had his camera bag nicked from his car. He had 700 UKP of camera gear in it, and no insurance.

My first reaction was *What a twit, having all that gear in one bag*
My second was to work out how much my camera bag was worth when full.
My third was to take out some insurance, online, quite quickly, then sit down with a cup of hot sweet tea.

It kinda adds up, doesn't it?

What's in my bag is covered on the house contents insurance however it only stood at a max of £1500 for any single item. As it stands no one single item is actually worth more than £1500 however the 'new for old' (I checked) would mean the current versions of 2 items would cost a lot more than that to replace. I had to adjust my policy to reflect this but it didn't make that much difference to the premium.

1D2 (discontinued) but would be 1DX on 'new for old' £5200
40D (discontinued) but would be 60D on 'new for old' £700
100-400L = £1300
17-40L = £600
24-70L = £900 but the new version 2 on 'new for old' = £2000
Converter = £200
Tripod & Head = £200
ND Grads = £100
77mm CPL = £75
77mm UV = £50
77mm 10 stop filter = £150
Plus Odds n Sods

Only problem with house insurance is if you claim they your premiums go up quite a bit I think.

Terrible really, you pay insurance but you end up paying it all back in the long run via increases in premium :/

That's right Azz.

I guess any insurance is a form of calculated risk.

It is exactly that, I suppose. You're making a bet that you're going to be going somewhere bad enough that someone will steal your equipment and/or you are big enough a klutz that you will drop it down a lift shaft and then drive over it. The insurance company is taking that bet on the grounds it cannot believe you'd be that silly. I think I know me better than they do...

I've actually insured my gear separately with a specialist company because I take it with me every day, whether at work or play, and I go to some pretty rough places...

I would have thought that having camera equipment on household policies would be dangerous in that I have read horror stories about substantial premium increases due to claims for camera gear, and some won't allow a claim from a car if the car was unattended. They may be apocryphal, but I'm sticking with Photoguard for now

(We will quitely brush aside the panicked searching for receipts for lenses, flashguns etc that occurred a short while ago. Also, here's a thing. The receipts are, to a man, on thermal paper. This, I know, degrades quite quickly even in warm weather. I'm a' photocopy all mine...)