I don’t know if this has come up before but I was wondering if any one insures their films and equipment.Considering the price one pays and the value of the prints / projectors if heaven forbid your film store burnt down could you ,or would you claim on house insurance?
One normally has to list individual items on household insurance,I would have thought this may prove awkward if you buy and sell,but even explaining to an insurer what “reel” film is.
Or does one have a one off specific insurance?
Or no insurance?
As I say it was just something that crossed my mind more out of curiosity than anything else.
Any thoughts?😃😃
📽📽

Just home insurance and around 50000 worth of inventory (stuff around the house)

Not specific to films I mean

This is something my Brother asked me the other day.
i dont think any insurance company would recognise it and if they did it would probably cost a bomb.
my guess is you could pick some of your top titles and a couple of projectors and perhaps put a price on that, for arguments sake two or three thousand. if you tried doing a whole collection the insurance ass wipes would want proof of all the films values separately. what is the official value of a top title? take star wars, we know it sells for a grand or more but a dealer valuing it for insurance would probably say 500/700.
This is a hard one Gwyn.

Having kept my DJ equipment previously in commercial premises and now the same with my film and equipment, I am both very familiar, as well as being entirely obligated to pay a monthly insurance premium, which of course I am more than happy to do so to protect my investments, despite the fact they are only investments for my own enjoyment (and hopefully one or two others in the future!)

You can pretty much insure almost anything nowadays to compensate for any loss in just monetary value at least.
Of course this could never be compensation for our loss if an entire collection was to go up in flames at somebody's property etc, heaven forbid!
Then of course, you'd have much more to worry about than just film or projectors.

The chances of ever getting an entire, or even partial set of goods as a replacement for our lost cine items would be virtually nil.

andrew, so you keep your projectors and films in a commercial lock up.

Indeed I do Clyde. Far too much to keep in a home, especially my own!

well that must be a nuisance, what if your sitting at home and suddenly have the urge to watch a feature, is the unit close to home?

It isn't a million miles away Clyde and its accessible 24/7, 365 days of the year just like my DJ Kit HAD to be.

Since moving it all away from home I just carefully plan an advanced crate of films for each time I have available to watch any. I usually keep one or two machines at home at any given time but this can be any of them now and often, just one which may require servicing again as well as a fully functional one.

I have about as much as I could personally ever cope with so far as the machines are concerned now and as much as I have a very deep passion for the machines themselves, I won't be adding any more without first ever letting one or two go.

I don't live in the house by myself anyway Clyde, so any decisions to watch any film, I have to "pre plan" so to speak.
This was the same even when I kept all of the films at home with me.

So far as any collection's actual value is concerned, this is completely ambiguous now given that this is an entirely specialist hobby these days.

Id say to anyone insuring their goods, be realistic and don't pay to insure your goods at what they have and may sell on an auction site at times. Be realistic and at best, with averaging, look to compensate yourself with around 75% of your outlay.

Otherwise you will be paying a monthly premium you wont want to pay and chances are, if you HAD to sell your films and equipment in a hurry, you'd never get anything close to the maximum you may think they are worth anyhow!

Insurance companies are generally very happy and swift at paying out, so long as they can see you are not in it for any fraudulent reasons and are happier still, if you are prepared to prove you will be taking a loss over your total expenditure, especially with items like these.

When I got my first sound projector and a few features, my father said he would increase the house insurance. Thinking about this question; none of us would have receipts for our films; we couldn't even prove we had them if they were lost in a fire, you would just have to accept whatever they paid out. It's up to us to take every precaution to see that doesn't happen. Make sure you don't leave electrical appliances switched on if going out. Father always used to switch off the water and electricity when we went on holiday. One time I turned the water off, and when I turned it on again, the force was enough to burst a pipe in the garden, so I'm very reluctant to use the stop tap again. Though the worry is that something could go wrong while you are away.

If I lost everything, I wouldn't start again; I'm too old, plus, I could never get back what I had in the same condition. Also prices for Super 8 would probably be too high. When it comes to 16mm, well, some of the titles I know would not turn up again.

if like myself, you have been purchasing your films and other items in the last decade or so, nearly all transactions are still electronically traceable, printable and therefore recordable as proof of purchase, so long as they are linked with the actual words of what it is the money is being spent on at the time of purchase.

Anything I've ever purchased from a dealer by telephone, I always get a vat registered receipt included in the parcel when it arrives.

I use PayPal more often than not, to pay for almost everything I ever buy to do with this hobby, so each time I make a payment, I always include a full description in the box of what it is the funds are buying.

It's very easy to do now in this era, to provide any level of proof for all purchases except those outside of cash car boot and convention sales etc etc.

I was thinking more of my Super 8 purchases, from 1973 up to 1984 or 85. Some I just bought over the counter from defunct companies.

Anything purchased from a bygone era without the aid of a receipt is more difficult to give an accurate evaluation on now, but certainly not impossible with a little digging Robert.