Insurance & Securing toys - tips, questions and options (browse whole topic)

[iamirondude]

i'm going to hate going back through my collection and trying to remember how much i payed and what the replacement costs are gonna be.

[GoktimusPrime]

It's hard when a good chunk of your collection was accumulated during your childhood. I got Apeface and Snapdragon MISB as Xmas gifts in 1987... I'm guessing my mum paid $20-30 for them... but I don't know for sure. Thunderwing was a bday gift in 1989 - I have no idea how much he costed. I bought the Pretender Monsters from Kmart for a couple of bucks each MOSC when they came out... but they'd cost a small fortune to replace in that condition now!

So as the bank told me, it's not at all about how much you paid to obtain the toys, but how much it would cost to replace it. Look at say car insurance -- it's like say car insurance, you can either insure it for the cost of replacement, or at its market value. I don't think car insurance covers you for its original retail cost, since cars are a depreciating investment. Same with say house insurance -- they don't insure you for the market value of the house, but the cost of rebuilding it. To my understanding, property insurance is about the cost of replacing the insured property (hence why they might insure a car for its market value, but not a house - because the cost of rebuilding a house might be quite different to the cost of selling it).

I'm not an expert on insurance, but that's how it was explained to me by an issuer at a bank.

[AJ_Prime]

I figured that if I lost all my transformers I would probably give up collecting. Maybe. But to accumulate all the ones I had and in the same condition would definitely cost me more now than what I paid for them initially.

I guess it depends on how badly you want to replace them all, and for what purpose you are collecting them. If it's something that you're very passionate about then for sure, try valuing them at replacement value. Of course for various figures this may change over time depending on what is popular or not.

If it's something that you enjoy on the side but you still have other interests then you'll probably just be disappointed with the loss for a while but will find some other way to fill the void. Going through the exercise of valuing everything at replacement cost will probably be too much effort.

I would consider my collection relatively small at just over 100 however for other members who have 1,000's including figures from the 80's etc I imagine that they would be pretty keen to replace as many as possible.

Either way I would say if you are going to value your collection then do what is right for you because that is all that matters.

BTW Goktimus, I like the red OP shirt in your signature block, I've got one just like it.

[Cat]

People automatically undervalue things like this.

When you really sit down and work out your replacement cost, it's generally a fair bit higher than you'd have originally estimated.

You can list items individually. Have fun with that.

But dated photographs MUST be kept. Keep a spare copy on a flash drive and give to a relative who doesn't live with you.

You need to be able to provide satisfactory proof you owned these items at the time of whatever the calamity was.

Generally, it's a good idea to have a photo amongst them that has that day's newspaper clearly visible and verifying the date.