Camera equipment insurance?
 

For all the photogs here...

Do you buy coverage for your personal camera equipments? If so, through where?

When I was in Ontario, the home coverage would cover camera or any other valuable as long as you submit it to the broker.

But when checking with my ICBC agent, he said he can't recall any specific policy for camera equipments unless it's commercial related.

Any comment is TIA.

Mine is covered under my condo's insurance, I did get it bumped up a little. I think it was an extra $35 to get coverage up to 10k

You mention camera insurance, then ICBC, so I'm assuming you want coverage if it's stolen from your car. ICBC won't cover it and you'll have to claim it through your home policy. You'd have to check with private auto insurance companies to see if they offer coverage.

^

I mentioned ICBC because of the broker. It's whom I got my car insurance from.

I want it for home coverage, as I am out of town often. And although it's not much, it's still quite some loss if I get broken into.

My TD home insurance covers cameras up to the total limit of my house with no extra charges (the camera gear is not on a separate rider). Ie my house insurance covers $25k of contents, so if I get my camera case stolen with $15k in gear, I will be covered for $15k - the deductible. House deductible is pretty high though, I think mine is $1k, so this might not be a good option if you only want to insure $2k in gear and want to have a $100 deductible.

Specific items have specific limits - i.e. with TD, bicycles are covered only to a maximum of $1k unless they are separately listed, so when I had my DH bike insured for $5k, I had to pay extra for that insurance, despite the fact that there clearly is lots of "room" on my base policy.

Since cameras aren't on the list of things to be insured separately, you are good to go - in my eyes, this is a major advantage to TD.

-Mark

Thanks... so, there are no limits on how much camera gear are worth? because a lens is easily 1k+ if not 2K+.

I haven't dealt with TD for a long while, I guess I'll pay them a visit soon.

No, but remember ask which settlement company insurance company deals with before you go with the insurance company. ING deals with FutureShop / BestBuy, so they will pick from what they have.. eg when I lost a Leica, they only bring in Broadway Camera after I complained. The cash value they offered was about 50% off MSRP. Lens / cameras they replace the equivalent model in today's terms and prices.. so if your Canon EOS 1D got stolen they will replace with EOS 1D C.. only if they appear on their settlement company's list.

The camera gear worth is part of how much your household goods are worth.. say things in house got stolen is worth 300k (typical).. and more than that is stolen.. you are SOL.

Also make sure you have the temporary export cards stored elsewhere than your cameras.

ICBC won't insurance anything that is not bolted down, so always bring camera gears with you all the time.

Yes, that's what the first and last paragraph states :)

I have done quite a bit of research as I am taking about $15k in camera gear travelling to Africa with me and wanted to make sure I am adequately insured. I have spoken to about 6 different reps at TD over the past year and 5/6 said absolutely we cover camera gear without limits, one said no we don't while travelling, I pressed her to talk to a supervisor, and then she confirmed with her supervisor that they don't have limits.

-Mark