<p>Do students purchase instrument insurance when they go away to college? My son's a violinist and, while not a music major, will take his violin with him to college.</p>
<p>If anyone has suggestions for insurance of an instrument, please share. I feel like we need insurance specific to the instrument.</p>
<p>Thank-you.</p>
<p>We have covered this topic several times over the years. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the Search capabilities available, starting with a search on the phrase “instrument insurance” (using the quote marks to search for the phrase rather than individual occurrences of the two words) and limit it to the Music Majors section. That will get you a lot of the collective wisdom on this topic. For more tips on how to search, see violadad’s thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/892168-search-tips-other-insights.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/892168-search-tips-other-insights.html</a></p>
<p>I tracked down some info from Violinist.com. Thanks!</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1142217-shopping-instrument-insurance.html?highlight=instrument+insurance#post12570341[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1142217-shopping-instrument-insurance.html?highlight=instrument+insurance#post12570341</a>
This was very helpful when I posted in May 2011.</p>
<p>I got a good quote but now I am wondering something. I got a quote to cover a violin, cello, 4 bows (each child has two bows) and two cases. Should I just get coverage for the instruments? Or instruments and bows? I figure if an instrument is stolen, I’ll have to replace the case, too. I thought the quote was quite reasonable and came to about $8 a month. I’ll take a look at the link above, thank-you.</p>
<p>Relevant to this topic, here is a recent story from the Boston Globe:</p>
<p>New England Conservatory student is reunited with lost $170,000 violin</p>
<p>[New</a> England Conservatory student is reunited with lost $170,000 violin - Metro Desk - Local news updates from The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/12/new-england-conservatory-student-loses-violin-philadelphia/I5goNA32JKjqyKKYsq4W9N/index.html]New”>http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/12/new-england-conservatory-student-loses-violin-philadelphia/I5goNA32JKjqyKKYsq4W9N/index.html)</p>
<p>Whoa. My son’s violin is barely worth 1/20th of that, but he’s no conservatory student. :-)</p>
<p>I read some older posts on this subject and some had commented that Clarion did not pay in a college locker or a car. However, I read the policy and that is not listed in the exclusions. Can someone comment on their experience with this issue?</p>
<p>I have had our instruments insured through Clarion since 2007 but never have needed to file a claim.</p>
<p>Here is the policy info for Clarion. All risk except for exclusions.
<a href=“http://www.nashvillemusicians.org/Musical_Intrument_Coverage_Form.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nashvillemusicians.org/Musical_Intrument_Coverage_Form.pdf</a></p>
<p>sbjdorlo: The policies we have had cover a certain dollar amount for the base premium, so you can throw in whatever you want to insure within the limit. We added mouthpieces, ligatures, case etc. (One of the happiest days of my life was when D walked away from the cello in the 4th grade! clarinets are relatively cheap).
turnerhome5: I would call Clarion. I asked them that same question in May 2011 and was told they do not cover theft from student lockers unless the lockers are in a fairly secure location or under surveillance. Maybe they have changed.</p>
<p>One other question, if you please. Though we bought my son’s violin for a certain price 5 years ago, we believe it is worth more. Should we ask the seller to reassess in writing? I just think if anything happened to my son’s violin, to replace it (it had some inexpensive work on it that makes the sound as good as some 20K violins we’ve heard), we’d need something at least 3K more than what we paid. So, wouldn’t we want it insured at the higher value? I’ve got a call into the original seller and we’ll see what he says but I’m pretty sure he was the one to tell us it was probably worth a good deal more than we paid. (He’s a friend of my son’s former teacher)</p>
<p>Thanks and hope that makes sense.</p>
<p>sbjdorlo, the insurance company will acquire a current appraisal, or at least a note from the dealer indicating the value of the instrument (if not a full appraisal) to put your violin on the policy. You can take your instrument back to the seller and he will either a) give you the original appraisal for what you paid for it a few years ago, b) re-appraise it (the value may go up or not) and may c) charge you if he does a re-appraisal. Although once I contacted a dealer from whom we had bought some violas for a current appraisal. He just spat them out of his computer and mailed them to us with a bill for $75 apiece without having looked at the instruments in years. I was shocked because other dealers have done this for us as a courtesy-- so be prepared or ask in advance. </p>
<p>The company cannot insure the instrument for more than the dealer says it is worth (that would be fraud.) One thing to keep in mind is that the value of the instrument and how good it sounds are two separate issues-- you can only insure it for what the appraisal says it is worth, even if it would cost more to replace it because it sounds so good (we actually have this same issue with some of our instruments.)</p>
<p>Another thing to consider while putting bits and bobs (like the case, which will inevitably wear out) on the policy: if you make too many claims, the company will drop you. So if you claim $500 for a wrecked case, and later $200 for a bow repair, you may find yourself getting a letter of cancellation. Save the claims for true catastrophes, such as a stolen or dropped instrument that needs to be replace, or that needs a very expensive repair. Another thing to keep in mind (although it will not affect your choice of insurer) is that if the instrument is damaged and repair, its value may change.</p>
<p>I would suggest speaking to the insurer to get a list of appraisers that they trust so that, in the event of a claim, they will not question the validity of your appraisal if it happens to come from someone they do not know. The instrument may be judged to be worth more or less than what you happened to pay for it plus the cost of additional work done to it. After all, you may have gotten a bargain or you may have overpaid.</p>
<p>Some insurers have a minimum annual policy cost that covers up to something like $20,000 or $30,000 worth of items. It may therefore cost the same to insure a $10,000 violin, a $2500 bow and a $500 case as it would to insure the violin alone. Glassharmonica has a point about coverage being dropped if you make too many claims. Realize that if you have coverage for a particular item, you will still have the choice of whether or not to make a claim should you have a loss. If you do not have that item covered, then you would have no such option. Depending on the insurer’s minimum and the dollar value that minimum covers, it may make sense to cover the bows and cases so that you will keep your options open later.</p>
<p>As I believe is discussed on the linked thread, don’t discount using a rider to your homeowner’s insurance. After looking at lots of options, we decided to leave the kids instruments on there for a while longer. Eventually, D3’s will need to change to something else as the plan is that sooner or later someone besides me will be paying her to do this thing. But our homeowners ended up covering dorm/locker situations better than the specialized policies would have.</p>
<p>It pays to look at all the possibilities. The area where many homeowner’s riders fall short is that they do not provide coverage when the instrument is used for a paid gig, even one where the pay barely covers gas money. Many will also not cover flood damage.</p>
<p>I put a call into the violin dealer and the violin is now selling for 5-10K more than we bought it, so he’s going to reassess it at the higher rate. I’m glad I made the call!</p>
<p>We also put a rider on our homeowner’s insurance. We ended up getting a professional musician’s policy even though the agent said out instruments should be covered even if one of my kids was out on a gig (we have Nationwide) because it was just a few dollars more expensive. We covered a bunch of trumpets and an oboe and it came out to about $100/year for 30k of coverage.</p>
<p>We had D’s guitars and recording equipment on a rider on our homeowners. It was fantastic until State Farm classified hurricane Katrina as a flood. Goodbye to about $12,000.</p>
<p>We also had our S’s instruments on our homeowners, it covered everything and it was inexpensive. Then we moved and the company stopped issuing new policies in Florida (can’t imagine why ;p). New insurance would not provide coverage so got a good recommendation from our local luthier. We now use Heritage and it covers everything including expensive cases, travel, camp / summer programs, locker storage. I would suggest getting a recommendation from your local music store and checking that out as an option.</p>