Cels Forum

There is a lot of pickiness when trying to insure
collectibles. When we set up our insurance (renter's
insurance) my husband and I were told that we would have to
go get professional estimates for the values of our
collections (him: Transformers, me: HRC pins and cels) or
we could only insure them for what we had paid for them up
to X number of dollars. It was far more expensive and a
pain than was worth it to find people knowledgeable about
our collections and then pay them to give us an official
estimate. Most are insured under a blanket - we get X
number of dollars if something happens to the collections.
No consideration for appreciation in value.

The difficulty is that collectibles can go in and out of
favor/vogue, can go up and down in value, and a single
piece can have different values depending on who you talk
to. A good example would be the "value" of a huge
collection of Beanie Babies a year and a half ago (very
high) as compared to today (much lower). Insurance
companies don't want to deal with keeping track of it - or
have huge numbers of overinsured private collections.

I have a couple cels picked out that are insured for "value
of reasonable replacement or compensation". (Which is how
my valuable jewelry is insured - like my engagement ring,
and diamond necklace.) In this case, our insurance company
has been given very incredbly detailed descriptions
accompanied by numerous photos, notarized to be accurate
representations of the items in my possession. It is more
expensive to insure things in this manner, BUT you are not
required to disclose how much the item was originally
purchased for, and it is the best way to insure "unique"
items like colored gemstones and artwork. My new cel of
Larva from Taro will be insured in this manner. So taking
that as an example, say someone in my apartment falls
asleep while smoking and burns the place down. My insurance
company will give me a certain amount of time to locate a
resonable replacement for the cel (they do not give you
forever to look) with the consideration that the
replacement will likely not look exactly like the original
because cels are unique items. If I find one, it will be
bought for me by them. (I'm sure if I wanted to take the
photos and have them pay to have the cel professionally
remade, they would cover that instead.) If I cannot find a
replacement in the time given (say this is years from now
and Miyu cels are as common as dodos), then they will take
the pictures and descriptions to a professional of my
choosing (or I can let them choose) and I will be given an
amount of money equal to the estimate given to them by the
professional, based on the description and photos of the
cel. This is the simple version, sans legalese, but you get
the idea.

Obviously you will have to ask your own insurance company
what their policies are and how they handle claims. We get
our insurance at a discount because my husband works for
the company - that is the only way we can afford to insure
some of our things like this. The other thing to consider
is that if you pay $30 for a cel and it gets destroyed
through accident years later, you still only paid $30 for
it, no matter what it was worth when it was lost. Not much
comfort there, but some at least. ^_^'

Of course, another rule of thumb for insurance is to insure
only necessities that you cannot afford to replace. For
what you would pay in insurance, you could probably buy
other very choice cels. ^_-

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac