Duels wrote:

Well I hope your insurance assessor doesn't read this thread.

They can read the thread as they approved the claim. I informed them the TV screen was faulty and they accepted it. 

I experienced similar luck. It's important to check the insurance terms and conditions when insuring B&O... I had DVD1 stolen and they replaced it with BC2 - brilliant

Dave wrote:

I experienced similar luck. It's important to check the insurance terms and conditions when insuring B&O... I had DVD1 stolen and they replaced it with BC2 - brilliant

Exactly - I clearly have a very good policy

Are folks here insuring their B&O with coverage apart from "homeowners" or "renters" policies? I usually just add on these items to my homeowners / renter's policy, but I'm curious if others do something differently.

For interest sake....the insurance phoned me today and they are sending an auction house to  collect my broken Beovision 7-32, it is going to be put on auction.

Some poor person is going to bid on it and a buy something that is not repairable. I certainly don't feel guilty about claiming but I do feel bad for the new owner of the broken Beovision 7! The insurance actually forgot about collecting it and I reminded them, thinking I was doing the right thing not knowing what was going to happen to it. I should have said nothing.

Sal wrote:

Are folks here insuring their B&O with coverage apart from "homeowners" or "renters" policies? I usually just add on these items to my homeowners / renter's policy, but I'm curious if others do something differently.

I just rely on my contents insurance. I have to pay the first part of any claim ( haven't ever needed to do it and can't remember the amount). It's a new for old type policy with no wear and tear deduction, so with any luck I would get the latest version of whatever got stolen. Some insurers seem to have started giving out vouchers for certain stores, so, for example, if you had a bike stolen you would be required to get a replacement from a particular retail chain. No doubt the insurer and retailer have their own deal going.

Graham

My insurance company also replaces old with new - Hiscox - an excellent company - not made a big claim for many years but had to claim a good many years ago and they simply paid up - completely recommended.

vikinger wrote:

Sal wrote:

Are folks here insuring their B&O with coverage apart from "homeowners" or "renters" policies? I usually just add on these items to my homeowners / renter's policy, but I'm curious if others do something differently.

I just rely on my contents insurance. I have to pay the first part of any claim ( haven't ever needed to do it and can't remember the amount). It's a new for old type policy with no wear and tear deduction, so with any luck I would get the latest version of whatever got stolen. Some insurers seem to have started giving out vouchers for certain stores, so, for example, if you had a bike stolen you would be required to get a replacement from a particular retail chain. No doubt the insurer and retailer have their own deal going.

Graham

I looked into this in some detail last time I renewed my contents insurance - mainly because we had experienced water entering from outside through our boiler just hours before we left for our two week tour of Denmark in August. I've been doing extensive renovations to the house, and consequently all of my B&O kit was "safely" stored away in one room, and it was that room that had water coming through the ceiling!

Luckily, with the exception of an old BV6, none of my gear got wet, but had the leak occurred 24 hours later it would likely have continued unchecked for the whole time we were away and I have no doubt that we would have returned home to collapsed ceilings and a room full of wrecked equipment. It was this thought of how much worse it could have been that prompted me to check all the insurance terms with a fine tooth comb when I was shopping around for my next policy.

Policies do seem to vary widely with regard to which items need to be declared individually. Generally it is 'valuables' and 'high risk items', above a certain value, that need to be listed - but the definition of these two categories seems to vary from insurer to insurer. The definitions in my current policy make it quite clear that 'non-portable' (those that can function only whilst connected to the mains) electrical items (including televisions and audio equipment) do not need to be declared, irrespective of value, so hopefully I'd have no nasty surprises if the worst did occur.

On the subject of vouchers, this is becoming increasingly common in the UK, but the ombudsman have stated that this should only occur if the retailer at which the vouchers can be spent are able to supply a like-for-like replacement, so I think you would have a strong case to request that alternative steps were taken if an insurer tried to do this in response to a claim for damaged / stolen B&O items.

Martin.

Nice one Ben! Please PM me the name of your insurance :D My insurance wants me to specify the B&O items as "high value"