[Magnus]

I recently bought myself a D80 with 18-200mm VR lens - since I spent some money on it I would like to insure it. Anyone know a good and reliable insurance company for theft and damage?

[Dabhand16]

Often your household insurance is the best bet. check out the small print of both household and specific insurances in case there are any trapdoors or bonuses in either.

I have never taken out specialist insurance for property, that is cameras, golf clubs etc, because my houshold insurance gives adequate cover, and has always been cheaper.

[Magnus]

Does that include theft and damage whilst travelling too?

[Gary Bagshawe]

EandL offer everything you could want including un-attended car cover for reasonable prices, however make sure you save all your reciepts etc and packaging as proof that you did actually own the item. I had to make a claim for a damaged lens and they made me jump through hoops to get the money, that said they are one of the only real options. at an affordable price.

[Dabhand16]

If your policy has an accidental damage inclusion, it ought to. Theft may or may not be covered by the usual wording of 'loss', as in 'loss or damage', for instance.

I'm no insurance expert, and, fortunately, have not had to make many claims, but in the case of golf clubs, if you left them in the street and then went to the cinema and found they were gone when you came out, you would be uninsured because you had not taken 'reasonable care'. A friend who had his golf clubs taken from a locker room of a golf club was able to claim because it was not practical to keep them with him at the dinner after the competition, and as he was using taxis for travel, was not able to put them into a car boot. He had not left them outside the premises, so he was covered.

This why you need to check out the small print, because not all policies are the same. Some specialist insurances will back claim on your houshold policy anyway, so you end up paying twice!

[Steve]

One to watch with camera insurance is that it does cover you against theft from your car. Most of them do not unless all the equipment is locked up in a container or place not accessible from within the vehicle passenger compartment. Locking your equipment in the boot therefore is nor covered (as in most cases you can access the boot from inside the car via the back seats.)

Please check the small print on any policy you are interested in to make sure you don’t get caught out.

[Rob Barron]

I looked into E&L carefully and decided to give them a miss as they are not as cheap as they look. They offer two options: home user or 'professional' and by that they mean one policy covers you providing you only ever take photos in your home (ok if you have a studio and that is your exclusive field of photography) whilst the professional one means you are covered if you take it outside of your home.... which I would reckon 95%+ of us do most of the time.

Cover starts off fairly low(ish) but that is for £250 of cover. Frankly that is as much use as a chocolate teapot to me. If you have a basic DSLR and a lens you will need at least £500 of cover. I have roughly £8,000 of equipment (at replacement value) so the cost is huge.

Furthermore, their excess is massive as well. You will be expected to pay at least £250 if you have your camera stolen. So if you have a D50, 400D, Sony Alpha, E-500, etc. you would find yourself getting compensated for just half the value of your camera.

My household insurance is with the Prudential so I rang them and asked how much I wold have to pay to put my camera gear on the insurance as named items. The answer made me almost fall through the floor.... it was less than £2 a month more than I was paying anyway! The thing is, the household insurance I have covers any unlisted item up to £1000 so my camera and each lens is covered bar the 100-400mm which is listed separately. I have cover away from home which also includes theft from a motor vehicle for any item not covered by car insurance.

So my advice is give your own home insurance company a ring before you go forking out for expensive specialist insurance that probably won't cover you as much as you would want it to anyway.

Cheers,
Rob