Do you buy Insurance for Stereo Equipment?

You need to "schedule" each item with your insurance company. I did this for each component that was worth more than my deductible. I assigned each item a replacement value, a value that in most cases was above retail(or what I paid) as I have some rarer items or items I bought used that would be expensive to replace. I assigned the higher value because I didn't want to insure the amp and the NOS tubes separately for example. In a fire or theft the two would be lost as one. I now pay a small percentage more for each item above the normal coverage I have for other lower cost items (personal property, clothes, furniture etc.). My company was fine insuring a $3000 (retail/replacement) item for more because I am paying the “difference” with my premiums.

Everyone should be sure of what they have covered, in many cases an insurance company has a cap on say jewelry, stereo, guns etc. In our hobby we are generally above that cap with only one item. A good friend of mine found this out the hard way when he was robbed and his many watches were stolen. The value was way beyond the insurance companies/his policy jewelry cap even though his total “coverage” should/would of covered it. It was his fault for not understanding his policy but by then it was too late.

If its not in writing don't trust your insurance agent when he says "yeah its covered." Good luck with that in a loss event.

Many of you may be wrong with your policies going with the idea that individual items add up to the enter whole. That just is not the case with most plans. My premium cost roughly 10-15% more even though I increased coverage by about 50% when insuring certain items at a determined value. I hope Theo is fully covered per his plan but I was not with mine even though I was insuring all my belongings to the value I had invested in them, say $100k. In an event where there was a total loss, maybe a fire, it would have been very difficult if not impossible to recoup all that loss. The reason being that my stereo equipment made up roughly one quarter of the total insured value, but according to my "$100k" plan, the cap on stereo equipment was far below that. Jewelry it's own percentage, clothes another, housewares etc.

Learsfool-I hope that in a loss your friend will make it whole, but unless he/she owns the insurance company it is not up to them. These companies don't make a profit by paying out in full to every Tom Dick and Harry that experiences a loss. The devil is the details and from my experience value is not value to insurance companies, it's value in certain and confined areas.

Keeping receipts and pictures is ideal but unless that info is stored off site(or itemized with your insurance company) it is susceptible to damage. Who's to say you spent what you spent when it's all ash and there was no record of it other than your memory? When buying used we don't have the paper trail associated when buying new, for me it's usually a MO out of my checking account, that is hardly a receipt for goods.

Just be sure that your covered, don't assume.