insuring vinyl

Thanks, everyone, for all the excellent advice so far. I did spend the evening perusing my renter's policy, and Pmkalby is correct--there is no mention of any sort of limit or lack of coverage to sound recordings except in the exclusion cited about recordings on a motor vehicle. So perhaps the agent I spoke to has incorrect info.

It's heartening to hear that some others have had decent luck getting agents to increase limits. I think I'll visit the local Met agent tomorrow (my wife and I qualify for group rate insurance through her employer, so we haven't really dealt with anyone in person). If that doesn't work perhaps I'll switch the policy to State Farm! USAA doesn't look like an option for the reasons Lugnut cited.

I think Pmkalby's second post brings up an interesting (and frightening) point about what happens in the event a claim is necessary--how to prove value, condition, etc. I actually have catalogued every single record in my collection (per the advice of a previous insurance agent), but I agree that condition and value are difficult if not impossible to document, and anyway as we all know used vinyl is a volatile market in a lot of ways--basically it's worth what someone is or isn't willing to pay for it. And certainly we've all bought valuable records for next to nothing because the seller didn't know the value.

I once sold some of my records to a guy who'd lost all of his in a house fire. He was reassembling his collection, bit by bit, with the insurance settlement money. This is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night.

Joshua

Just a quick follow-up to my earlier posts: I spoke to a local agent who advised me that, while my collection is covered for replacement value as part of my renter's policy (as personal property), I should still get the collection professionally appraised and then attach a rider to the policy for it. Her brother, apparently, is an Elvis collector (how strange to hear an insurance agent talk about "clear blue vinyl LPs"!) and bought a special rider because a) if the record turns out to be irreplaceable (say you can't find one for sale), you won't get any money for it, and b) you'll only get replacement value, not collectible value. With a rider, according to this agent, I'd be paid the full value of the collection as determined by the appraiser, whether or not I can replace every record in it. Given the investment my own collection represents, this sounds (to me, at least) like a better idea than simply bumping up the amount of total coverage I buy. Just thought some of you might be interested in this. Thanks again for all the responses.

Joshua