With the large influx of threads centred around faulty devices and support/repair costs, i thought it would be a good idea to create a thread about musical insurance.
Who has their gear insured? If not, why not? If so, why?
Ive been covered with Allianz musical instrument insurance for about 10 years now, my DJ unit, headphones, cables, cases, speaker and laptop are all covered for use in the UK. This includes any damage, faults, spilt drinks, theft from my vehicle.
The total cost is around £120 a year, and to give an example of upgrading gear, ive just paid £3 to add my new Bose monitor to the policy in place of my previous monitor… I personally think anyone who uses their equipment outside the bedroom (and even then those that are bedroom DJs should consider some kind of cover) should have their expensive gear covered.
I have a plan with USAA that covers all the electronics in my home, verified that they don’t categorize professional audio gear as musical instruments so they cover it the same as all my TVs and computers.
I have all of my DJ Gear, computers and camera equipment covered under my house insurance and there is only a minimal additional outlay to our normal monthly payment, it also covers it when i am using it out of our normal abode.
If i am travelling abroad then i can specify which equipment i am taking in case of theft or damage and it is still covered although IIRC it is limited to 5 items- 4 of those are usually the toil and strife rings
I guess i have been lucky that i have never had to avail of an insurance claim, but you can bet your left and right nut that if you didn’t have it you would be squealing like a piggy.
Good insurance is only good if you are willing to read the fine print and ensure that what you are paying for is what you are going to get.
Fully agree Revan, although having insurance is better than not in 99% of cases. I got a new MacBook screen on mine, it was £850 to replace it if I had to pay so saved me a fortune.
Our home insurance won’t offer anything near that (we have £6000 of camera gear we travel with and no holiday insurance will cover that much either) so I’ve got separate policies for both.
Should anything happen to their equipment they’re exposing themselves to a whole heap of problems, I think my insurance is £15/16 a month including PLI certainly beats paying upwards 1k+ for a replacement and inflation is a big factor too, my sc6000 bundle if I were to buy it now would cost an extra 600-700 just due to inflation
Depends. An insurance is a must have if you can’t cover the costs when things go wrong. For example, most people will be bankrupt when their house burns down without an insurance. Or it may be legally mandatory, like a car insurance.
In all other cases you have to make an economic decision: what is the cost, what are the odds. If you would insure every expensive item in your household, you will quickly discover that you pay more than you will ever gain.
I am a building contractor, and in Belgium we are obliged to insure the stability of our constructions since a couple of years: That looked like good idea to politicians who wanted to protect the consumer from some dodgy contractors. The reality is that our track record says that insuring ourselves was 10-20 times cheaper than letting an insurance company cover it. Result is that the consumer now pays 4000 euros more for a house, just to be covered by an even bigger company than us. But hey, we built more than 4000 family houses over the years, and can crunch the numbers. If I were a small contractor building 2 houses per year, a big stability problem in one of them would have me bankrupt…
There are also companies like shell who insure themselves to cover oil disasters. Which is a big word for just being able to handle any damage you cause.
That goes for your Denon set too: are you able to buy another set in case things go wrong? Then you dont need an insurance, and probably will be cheaper in the end that way… of course, you can’t predict the future, but if you have many expensive things in your house (like a DSLR camera, piano, tv, …) the odds get better…
They key is ‘in your house’…. Most problems seen on here start with ‘I was doing my gig’ or ‘I was DJIng at a party’ which straight away drastically increases the chances of there being an issue, therefore making insurance a sensible option to consider.
It indeed does, but it is still a decision based on statistics and mass of your undertaking. My point was that there are a lot of situations were an insurance policy doesn’t make sense. Even some high risk undertakings as oil drilling or construction. It’s a very personal decision…
And i understand that, but im specifically referring to those use their gear outside the house, dont have it then head to forums like this to bemoan the cost of repair, and in some cases even start taking their gear apart themselves.
