r/videography • u/j_jack93 Sony a7iv | Premier | 2022 | UT • 17h ago
Business, Tax, and Copyright Filed insurance claim stories
I’m currently about 15k deep in all my gear and I’m thinking it’s time for insurance. But here’s what I need to know:
From people who have had to file!
Who do you use
What do you pay
What happened to need to file
How difficult/long did it take?
What do you wish you knew before?
1
u/WannabeeFilmDirector 10h ago
We have about the same and don't insure. We're in the UK and when we did the maths, we realised in order for insurance to give us ROI, our kit needed to be stolen once every 5 years. We're 10 years in and nothing's gone missing so we're good at the moment.
1
u/The-Great-Mau 6h ago
Yes, but are you saving the amount you'd be paying for insurance? That way you'd be absolutely right that it's a better ROI. If not, it's just you not being "insured".
I'm not trying to be rude here, just curious about how you manage that. I myself don't insure basically because that's a nightmare in my country.
1
u/Run-And_Gun 6h ago
At the time I was with Brad Buell Imsurance. I don’t remember the underwriting company. It was 20 years ago. I was out of town on a shoot and my entire truck was stolen from the gated parking lot at the hotel where I was staying. It was an inside job or at least they were assisted by someone inside. I lost $40K-$45K in gear. Luckily, the camera was inside with me. Dealing with the equipment insurance portion was actually very easy. My vehicle insurance company on the other hand was a PITA(vehicle was recovered several days later). And dealing with Atlanta PD was as bad as having everything stolen again. They were actually less than useless and complicated matters, because they F’d up the police report and lumped my theft in with others at the same hotel that same day, so it took weeks to untangle the mess. And in a city like Atlanta, they couldn’t care less about something like that.
Luckily for me, just a few weeks before, I had made a complete inventory of all of my equipment and had printed copies in a binder in my office and I was able to get someone to fax them to me to immediately provide to both the police and the insurance company.
The insurance company cut an initial check probably within a week. Because it was a replacement cost policy, I had to provide receipts for everything that I purchased, as I replaced them.
2
u/Manyshapess 15h ago
I use Hill&Usher Package choice. It’s $50 a month and covers everything plus liability. I haven’t had to use it but know someone that’s had their kit fall into the ocean and they had a check that week. I’m really happy I have it just for the peace of mind.