Insurance??

[dannybgoode]

On 18/01/2017 at 21:21, iapa said:

I am looking forward to the time that your retirement has been for the requisite time that you are able to offer us the benefit of your in depth knowledge of insurance products.

but, the way legislation around insurance change annually I am not holding my breath

????

 

Actually the last couple of years has seen the first fundamental change in insurance law since the Marine Insurance Act 1906!

Individual cover, policy specification etc may change regularly but the underlying laws and legislation rarely does. 

For my sins I too am involved far too much on insurance being an underwriter of a fairly niche commercial class. 

I agree with noah also that insurers these days generally don't wriggle out of genuine claims although there is sometimes some robust reliance of policy terms and conditions. 

For something like astro equipment I would look at individual item limits and most policies give you the option to specify items over this limit. 

You can get cover for items away from home also and again can specify valuable items but precisely what cover is afforded out of the house will vary from policy to policy. 

[Demonperformer]

Going to jump in with a warning, that has just come to light as my contents policy is about due for renewal ...

Twelve months ago, I went into great detail with my broker about the cover I required for my astro-gear: I wanted it covered for theft and damage both while I was using it in the garden and when (if) I should take it to another location to observe. He stated that my standard policy would only cover items that were actually in the house (as opposed to within the boundaries of the property). He came back with a policy that included "contents temporarily removed" (upto 20% of the maximum claim limit). The price seemed reasonable (£55), so I took it.

Fast-forward twelve months to renewal-time. I have received some junk mail from a company that "guarantees" they will either quote me a figure £50 less than my renewal, or refund me the difference + £50. Sounds good (they would nearly be paying me to insure my contents), so I go to my broker and get a copy of my renewal documents.

Because this offer requires the terms to be identical, I read them all pretty carefully and get confused. The cover is still for "contents temporarily removed" (upto 20% of the maximum claim limit), but also includes the limit: "contents in the open, but within the boundaries of the property" £1000 total, £300 per item. To me, this sounded as if, taking my equipment to the green "common" across the road, I would be covered for £15k, but staying on my side of the road, in the garden, I would only be covered to £1k. So I trundle back to my broker to enquire. It turns out that, despite what the broker said last year, my equipment is not covered outside of my property at all (that 20% term refers to - for example - a student taking stuff to university) and in the garden, just that miniscule amount.

Oh yes, there are companies that will provide the cover I require, but the best quote he can come up with takes my premium from £55 to £156.16. Considering the number of nights I actually get to use my equipment, this works out at a lot per night.

So, having been astro-uninsured for the last year, I am left with three options:
(i) Carry on as before and hope
(ii) Pay the extra £100 for "peace of mind" on the nights when I actually do get out
(iii) Find some form of specialist insurance for the astro-gear when it is outside.

To that end, I did a quick quote on the Glover & Howe insurance site listed in a previous post. Despite saying on their website that cover starts from £20, the figure they came up with was £157, so that isn't going to save me a lot!

I suppose, because of a previous laptop theft, I have been mainly thinking of that, and there are precious few individual items that are both 'run off down the street-able' and outside the £300 limit, but there is also the risk of (for example) dropping my 8" sct while fitting it to the NEQ6 mount, which would be a bit more than £300.

But I digress. The main point of what I am saying is: if you are going to insure it, make sure your equipment is covered where you are going to use it (i.e. in the garden, not the house) - if my recent exploits demonstrate anything it is that it probably isn't.

BTW: Anyone know of any other specialist astro-insurers that are likely to charge less than £100?

Thanks.

[Highburymark]

And what about sending a telescope back to the manufacturer to be repaired under warranty? Does the sender need to arrange their own insurance to cover damage during shipping or does it tend to be covered by the warranty?

[Highburymark]

9 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

And what about sending a telescope back to the manufacturer to be repaired under warranty? Does the sender need to arrange their own insurance to cover damage during shipping or does it tend to be covered by the warranty?

Scratch the above post - looks like almost every manufacturer expects owners to insure their scopes for shipping.

[iapa]

I had an issue where my whole rig was blown over by wind whilst on holiday in the Orkney Islands.

I was provided with a replacement, within 7 days, for the DSLR camera (Canon 70D) which suffered damage to the connectors.

payment to cover replacement of

• Celestron StarSense
• Skywatcher 200-PDS - the main mirror was damaged.
• repair to the CGEM-DX (a motor was damaged and needed replacement - c £400)
• a focus motor that burnt out due to trying to rack focuser in whilst buried n an inch or so of dirt/grass
• a couple of other things that I cant remember off hand.

There was no quibble about where it happened or any other such nonsense. A simple phonemail to advise of the accident, and a couple of emails from the various peoples who evaluated the damage, and job done.

However: my premium is somewhat in excess of £155 pa:) but I think worth very penny.

There is an alternative view that someone suggested in the same subject a wee while back; just put an amount of money back every month in your own pocket which you would duse to replace any damaged equipment.   is not going help if something happens tomorrow, but, over along term its your money, you could invest in premium bonds (mmmm it is a suggestion)  £10 pw (less than a bottle of cheap plonk, or 2 packs of smokes, or two fast food burger meals) gets you £100 of premium binds every few weeks, and you can get it back when you want.

[Demonperformer]

Update on my above post:

I have been back to my broker to get some additional clarification on the £1000-limit/£300-per-item 'in the garden' cover and some of the answers were not quite as I expected, so I report them here in case they are of any help to anyone in sorting out what may (not) be covered on their policies.

Scenario 1: Laptop (£270) stolen [single item <£300] Answer: fully covered.
Scenario 2: Filter wheel (£280) containing NB filter set (£278) stolen [total cost >£300 - are they treated as 1 item because they are "locked together" or as two separate items each <£300]. Answer: if they can be purchased separately, they will be treated as separate items, so covered.
Scenario 3: Drop OTA (£1000) while attaching it to mount and cause £500 damage. Answer: Because the value of the item is >£300 it is not covered at all, so even if the damage was <£300 I would get nothing. But these items are still fully covered for theft/loss/accidental damage while within the house.

As I say, not all as I expected, although it does make sense. At least I now know where I stand: everything costing <£300 would be covered (to the £1000 limit) and nothing costing >£300 would be covered at all while in use.

No guarantees that these same answers would given by other companies, but I hope this might be of some help to someone.

As for what I will do about the 6/7 items that cost >£300, I have decided to earmark one of the stocks in my share portfolio (which has shown consistent growth in value and has got a negative liability) as "Astro-insurance". If I have a disaster and need to replace a high-value item, I will sell some of those shares to find the money. Having made that specific decision, I am quite happy with it.

Thanks.