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Quick insurance question..

15:36 / 17.12.03

Basically: what does it take to make an evaluation legally acceptable?

I mean, do you need a special form, any particular information, or can it just be a bit of paper on which some guy with a vague claim to know about such things has written "I think this is worth £500", signed, and dated..?

What's the proceedure basically?

10:10 / 18.12.03

So nobody has any idea then?

11:25 / 18.12.03

By "legally acceptable," do you mean acceptable to an insurance company? Are you talking about a rusty old car, an antique or your stereo amplifier?

Why not ask the insurance company? AFAIK, it's pretty much like you say. They don't really give a monkey's until you claim, then they will be looking for a valuation from a reputable, specialist dealer, if you're talking about an antique or something unusual. If it turns out to be significantly more valuable than you originally said, they will wriggle out of paying.

11:27 / 18.12.03

Ok I only know UK info, but as far as I know if something gets nicked and its under your insurance you have to supply the insurance company with a receipt from the shop you purchased it from.
It also helps to take photos of the things your insuring and sign and date the back. Just having the photo alone might not be enough though.

11:47 / 18.12.03

Yes, I got burgled once and they did want receipts for some stuff like jewellery, but if it's an ordinary thing like your dining table or whatever they probably won't question it unless you claim it was Louis XIV or something.

08:35 / 19.12.03

Cheers for the advice.. I'm getting my CDs insured, since I have tons of them and live in a ground floor flat and they're in the front room in conveniently carry-able boxes, and, y'know.. I'd be pretty pissed off if they got stolen.

09:07 / 19.12.03

Man, from what I’ve seen of your posts, your CD collection is worth more to you than you can possibly insure it for. Spend the money on an ipod or something instead, and keep the actual CDs in a really, really safe place. In years to come, your collection of treasured rarities from the CD age will grace your fantastic, secure penthouse flat.

Seriously. You’d miss them if they were stolen. Everyone I’ve ever known who has taken big CD collections to college/university/ground floor-front room flat-type arrangements has had to replace them, several times. They’re just too re-sellable to leave lying around. If you pride yourself on having the finest CD collection in Wales or wherever, then it’s definitely far, far too valuable to be hawked down the market by some skanky junkie fuckwit.

Well, that’s what I think. Personally, I don’t even have a CD player. I find a really tatty vinyl collection is too fucking heavy/worthless to bother nicking, especially if there aren’t any boxes in the flat, and if it’s lying scattered around all over.

09:25 / 19.12.03

PS: I knew a girl who lived in a big shared house at Uni with 10 other people. This house got burgled six times in one year, maybe the only six times nobody was home, I don’t know. Each time, the only thing that gets nicked is CDs, hundreds of them every time. This girl I know doesn’t have CDs, she’s only got tatty vinyl and a fantastically crap record player that looks like it's falling to bits. ‘First time the house gets burgled the door to her room gets kicked in, the only thing she loses is the cover to her beanbag. Doesn’t bother replacing the lock or the beanbag cover, she doesn’t lose anything else for the rest of the year. But only because she doesn’t have what they’re looking to steal, right?

14:19 / 19.12.03

Well *gulp*, thanks for reassuring me..

You're right of course, my collection of music *is* worth more than I could possibly insure it for, but if the worst came to the worst, a couple of grand would certainly take the edge off the despair..

But then, in similarly anecdotal terms, no house I've lived in has ever been burgled. Just like I've never been mugged or attacked, despite walking around all kinds of unsavoury places in the dead of night. So far I've just been lucky that way I guess.

The CDs are spending Xmas behind three locked doors in a locked wardrobe anyhow, as no doubt student-town during the holidays is a happy hunting ground for robbers..

Oh, and incidentally, the guy at the record shop informs me that I've only got one record that's worth any real money, and that's an old Jefferson Airplane LP I bought for about £2!

What a terrible world we live in where the combined collected works of the Velvet Underground, Pavement and Melt Banana are worth less than a Stone Roses 12" with the right colour label..