Insuring your collection (and the rest of your stuff) has particular relevance in Australia right now. Putting yourself in the place of people who have lost everything to fire almost overwhelms the imagination.

What would make matters even worse for me would be finding afterwards that my insurance is inadequate, or that my claim for particular items was being challenged for lack of supporting documentation.

So I thought I would share a personal experience which might give some guidance to those of you who have a general concern about getting your watches insured in a way that offers some guarantee that you could successfully claim if you need to.

A few years ago we moved across Australia to Sydney. We had a lot of accumulated stuff as my wife collects art and antiques and I have collected watches and antique arms. We hired a antiques specialist removal guy we knew, who leased a bigger truck for the job.

The big day came. We loaded up and by mid afternoon the removal truck had headed off to Sydney. We followed a couple of hours later, taking a different route.

Around 8pm we had just settled in to a motel when my phone buzzed. It was the removal guy, obviously stressed (and in the background I could hear sirens). He told me that the back of the truck was on fire at the side of the highway, with firemen trying to save the whole load from being destroyed. My wife and I could do nothing that night as we were a couple of hundred kilometres away, but we did not get much sleep.

The outcome was that the truck could continue to Sydney with about 15% of the load destroyed and much of the rest water soaked and blackened. Here is where the insurance story is important.

As a collector, I have forced myself to keep a basic register of what I have collected, and what my wife has. That means a description with identifiers - in the case of watches, the serial number, the model, a photograph, and my estimate of the value.

I then deposit an updated USB drive with each list with the home and contents insurance agent every year. I have stipulated in the covering letter that the values were based on current market/auction prices, and that in accepting my premium payments, the insurer was accepting this approach - unless they informed me otherwise. They never did.

In the case of our removal truck fire I had fortunately done the same thing with the marine insurer covering the journey, so when it came to their loss assessor talking to us after the fire, he already had a printout of everything.

Even so, I was not sure whether there would be stonewalling or debate. As it turned out we were given gold star treatment and full payment for the lost and damaged items amounting to almost $100,000. I am convinced that without those itemised lists provided to the insurer in advance of the removal, we would not have fared nearly so well.

So my advice is to take the trouble with your collection to keep a simple register like mine; provide an updated copy each year (or more frequently if you have some big acquisitions) to the house and contents insurer; and ask in writing if they have any problem with the approach you are taking, particularly on valuations.

 

Great advice.

Who do you use for household contents insurance in Australia? One of the commercial insurers or do you go through a broker?

 

Our home and contents insurer is currently QBE, on the advice of the broker we still use in Adelaide, Ginn and Penny. The removal marine insurance was provided also through Ginn and Penny but was a specialist firm whose name I no longer have on record.

I think having an established relationship with the broker rep probably helped our claim also. Dealing direct with big insurers online is so impersonal and procedure driven that I would avoid it.