Thursday 21 August 2014

Adding Insurance

It's no secret that Warhammer is an expensive hobby. A little while back my wife and I were discussing something like this when the topic of insurance came up. Our house and contents insurance does include a item in it for my Warhammer stuff, but it's a pretty nebulous item with a very, very vague estimate of value. If we were to actually have a fire or very thorough robbery and I lost it all, I have no idea what would happen next. Nor do I even know whether it would cause a problem with the insurer when the time to claim came around. Would they suddenly question how I could possibly have a toy soldier collection with a value equal to that of a small new car? How could I then prove the matter?

We came to the conclusion that I probably needed to do something in terms of photographing and itemising the collection in order to back up any insurance claims should the need arise (and assuming I actually survived the shock of such a loss). To that end I started pulling some of my stuff out and taking photos, so that things could be identified. I didn't get to the end, but I did manage to cover a couple of armies, and it's a start.
So... This is what it looks like when I pull all my painted stuff out at once. Or at least, it did back in April when I was doing this. There are a few more things to add to the tally now.
It's not just painted stuff that was getting pulled out. Here were the unpainted Dwarfs. I took a ton of photos of individual things, although when you blow something like this one up you can actually identify and count the models anyway.
The Wood Elves were the other army that I got around to itemising. Here we have some ummm... Plastic.
Oh dear. King and Queen of the Wood, and they haven't even been assembled. I think they've looked like that for 15 years now... And yes, I have Ariel's other wing somewhere.
Some old school Wardancers.
I don't know how many of you out there have gone through any sort of similar process (or have lost a collection and gone through the process of claiming it on insurance). If you have, what did you do about the painted side of things? At last count I've got about 2000 painted Warhammer models, which is a fair amount of time and effort that would be lost along with the figures...

On the bright side, pulling all my stuff out gave me a chance to take some cool pictures. :)
Here's hoping I never have to find out how the insurance side of this hobby really works.

7 comments:

  1. Junkie! That is a huge amount of lead and plastic.
    On a more serious note you may need to approach a broker that deals with collections or collectables. Had a friend try and insure a historical collection and the miniatures could easily be costed but the painting was hard to sort out. Actual pro painted by others could be invoiced but his work was not looked at as he was not "a professional artist or artist business" but you can get your hobby insured. The train guys do.

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    1. Yeah, it's definitely a lot of stuff. Even when we did specify the collection on our insurance for a nominal amount, no consideration was given to the time and effort I had put in. But realistically the only way I'd ever be able to replace it all if I *did* lose the whole lot would probably be through commission painters.

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  2. Can't you claim it as home defence? I mean, multiple armed forces must be worth something if a burglar gets in. Even if merely strewn underfoot as caltrops. So if they're protecting your property, actually the insurance folk should reduce your premiums.

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    1. Definitely. Alarms, savage guard dogs and very pointy things on the floor in the dark are all valid means of protecting one's home.

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  3. This is the most attention I've ever paid to an article about insurance.

    All insurance documents should be accompanied by images of tables groaning under the weight of Warhammer minis - impressive collection!

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  4. Wow! That last picture is especially great. Insurance is something to think about. Although, like you said, it might be hard to survive the shock of such a loss if it did happen.

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