How do you evaluate your gear?

I want to get my gear insured against theft / damage & was wondering, How do you evaluate it? Do you give the insurance company a list & let them decide how much it's worth? Do you bring your list to a camera dealer & ask them to give a value on each item? Are older items valued at the current price or at what they originally cost? What happens if you cannot remember how much you paid for something or don't have the original receipts? Any advice would be appreciated.

I gave mine a list of everything I own and the cost to replace it.

I highlighted items that are no longer available and provided the cost of the most recent model (eg. EOS 1DMkIV would replace 1DMkIII if necessary @ $XXXX.XX)

Miki G wrote in post #13538423
I want to get my gear insured against theft / damage & was wondering, How do you evaluate it? Do you give the insurance company a list & let them decide how much it's worth? Do you bring your list to a camera dealer & ask them to give a value on each item? Are older items valued at the current price or at what they originally cost? What happens if you cannot remember how much you paid for something or don't have the original receipts? Any advice would be appreciated.

That will depend on the kind of policy you get--carefully ask those questions of the agent and be sure you understand the answers you get.

Some policies provide "full replacement value." In those cases, the insurance company may simply get the model number/name of your equipment (may or may not have required receipts, may or may not ask to see the equipment--all they may do is verify that you do, indeed, own it). If you claim a loss, they will often go to their own sources to procure an equivalent current model-for-model replacement, they may give you a check to purchase a current model-for-model replacement, or they may have you buy a replacement and reimburse you.

Or the policy may provide a "current value" payment. In that case, they probably will want to see the receipts up front because theyr'e going to pay a depreciation from what you originally paid.

But companies differ significantly and policies within a company may differ significantly, so you have to ask those questions of your own company for your own policy.

One thing to remember about any insurance policy is that the intention (as far as the company is concerned) is to cover catastrophes, not incidental losses. Catastrophes are statistically rare and are stupendous losses beyond the reasonable capacity to cover from your own bank account. In my own business, for instance, I would not make a claim for a loss of a couple of hundred dollars, but I would if I lost my entire case.

Thanks Flyingphotog & RDKirk. I'll have a chat with an agent.

I have a spreadsheet with model and SN that I give to my agent on an annual basis when my premium is due. More often if I make a major purchase during the year. I have a policy with State Farm and I have 90 days to get them the info when I upgrade. It is covered for that 1st 90 days as long as I have a receipt.

Under the advice of my agent I use the MSRP of items that are currently available for new purchase and I go to KEH's website and look up their selling price of items that are no longer available new. The only time I have ever had any issues with this is when I had a would be insurance analyst try to reject my $3000 value on my 1DsII (The current going rate for that camera) by telling me that I could replace it with a 5D for less than $2000. Needless to say we had words and my valuation was accepted.

One more note. I have a copy of the spreadsheet stored on a cloud drive like Apple's iDisk or Microsoft's Skydrive in case of a computer crash.

I buy my stuff used, so I just go by the price that I paid (unless I bought a 5DmkII for $1, then I would be finding a correct price quote). I have paypal receipts and emails from the people I bought stuff from, that's all the proof they should need. I try to find the best prices when I buy used, so some of the value may be a bit less than it should be, but that just means I don't pay as much for insurance since it goes by the dollar amount.