OFF: insurance for CDs and/or tapes ?

[Paul Mather]

On Wed, 17 Apr 1996, Jerry wrote:

> >       My question is, does anyone here (particularly USA) have any
> >       experience with insuring music collections?
>
> Strange stories... It's just one of the things you do. I got a house of my
> own, the first thing I did was insuring the lot I stuffed into it, including
> records, CDs and (live) tapes. Same insurance as for furniture. If part of it
> gets stolen or burnt or blown away by a hurricane (extremely rare here in
> Holland) (part of the furniture of all of my CDs - all the same), insurance
> pays.
> I know there are special insurances for special collections, but that's not
> necessary (for me). Don't know anyone who has that.
> Well, this is the case for Holland. Dunno about other countries.

In Britain, and I suspect the same is true for the USA (and most
everywhere), it pays to check your policy carefully to see what is and
what is not covered.  The home contents policy I had in Britain
specifically did *not* cover music collections (and I never saw a policy
that did as standard).

The big problem I had in thinking about insuring my collection was the
fact that the stuff I was really interested in protecting was rare and,
usually, out of print.  So if it was damaged/stolen, the chances of my
replacing it were virtually nil anyway.  I'm sure the money would have
provided some solace, but not much.  Who can put a price on an obscure
release that took you ages to track down by happy circumstance and no
longer exists?  I think the wiser approach is that advocated by Craig
Shipley et al who suggest making the stuff harder to steal in the first
place (e.g. buying a couple of Milli Vanilli cut-outs to put on top to
throw them off the trail, and peg you as a hopeless no-taste record owner
that nobody would touch with a barge pole;).

Cheers,

Paul.

obCD: Albert King, _Live_

e-mail: paul at csgrad.cs.vt.edu                    A stranger in a strange land.