Music insurance in the UK?

December 17, 2004 6:53 AM

[UK Music Insurance] I always felt that my record collection was too personal/horrible/crap for anyone to bother stealing it, but a friend of mine who lives just round the corner has had most of his collection pilfered so now I'm not so sure. While my collection doesn't include many items that are in themselves valuable, just the number of CD's and records would make them very expensive to replace. Any ideas on what insurance options are available?

By the way I should say that my friend's collection was neither horrible or crap but I thought it was esoteric enough that no one would bother stealing it.

posted by dodgygeezer to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Catalog it, either in a list or with some close-up photos, and then make sure you pay your homeowner's or renter's insurance premiums. Thieves don't really peruse the collection, they just take the CDs because they are easy to unload. If you catalog it and it is subsequently stolen you might actually catch the thieves if you give the list to local used CD stores.
posted by caddis at 7:06 AM on December 17, 2004

Insurance doesn't care if the records were good or not either.... they'll just pay a certain amount for each one you lost. Happened to me once. I had to provide a list of actual titles that were stolen, which of course I had to partially make up, 'cause who the hell can remember exactly. But it all worked out fine in the end. If you have a lot of records you don't like, getting them stolen is actually a really good thing -- you can take the dough and buy some stuff you want!
posted by spilon at 7:56 AM on December 17, 2004

CDs are a really hard thing to insure. Everyone I know who has had their collections stolen has gotten completely screwed on it. One girl I know was given fifty dollars for her collection of 1000 (including lots of rarities) and told that she'd be reimbursed 50% on any receipts she could provide. Naturally she'd thrown them all out over the years, so she wound up getting the big, fat bone. So my suggestion is that as you continue to buy CDs and records, keep your recepits. Keeping personalized photos as caddis suggested is good. I'd even take a further step and put a sign like "YOUR NAME'S COLLECTION" in every picture just so it's rock solid.
posted by baphomet at 2:09 PM on December 17, 2004