<p>where do you purchase instrument insurance? is there one catering to music major students?</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>We use Anderson Group (<a href=“http://www.anderson-group.com/”>About Anderson Group - Anderson Group) and have been very pleased with the price and service.</p>
<p>Same for us! Service and price great. Compared them to a few others (Clarion and others I don’t remember now), and these guys definitely came out on top.</p>
<p>Check with your insurance company to see if your homeowner’s insurance covers the instruments. I was told that our policy covers our instruments for everything (theft, fire, etc) unless they are in another residence. For some reason dorms are not considered a “residence.”</p>
<p>I recommend not counting on homeowner’s insurance to cover instruments. If the instrument is being used professionally (any gigging) the homeowner policy will not cover it. If the instrument has any antique value, beware, they will depreciate it. It really depends on the value of your instrument. If it’s just a few thousand dollars, any policy will do–or just don’t insure it. If it’s is a more valuable instrument, then get quotes because the policies vary a lot (in my experience.) Clarion and Heritage are two who specialize in instrument insurance. We got the best deal from Total Dollar’s fine instrument division (we learned about them from a violin dealer–they were not previously on our radar.) </p>
<p>We have riders on our homeowners policy for each instrument–three clarinets and a French horn. So far that has been fine for our needs–the extra cost is pretty minimal–however, none of the instruments are more than about $4000 in value. And, now that son is graduating, I guess we need to seriously look at the ‘gigging’ coverage as g.h. pointed out. Thanks for all the info here.</p>
<p>Right-- when you get into five and six figures (for string instruments) the insurance needs can be very different. We have a number of instruments that are not even on our policy. The reason? if they were damaged or stolen we would probably not make a claim for fear of being dropped. </p>
<p>Yeah, we got lucky no one in our family chose strings. :D:D (Not that we don’t love them though).</p>
<p>Check your homeowner’s insurance first. We used them for years until forced to change companies. Now we use Heritage Insurance, it was recommended by our local luthier and they have been great. It covers every circumstance.</p>
<p>Wow, I’m glad I noticed this thread. My husband’s childhood piano teacher left him her Steinway Piano (6’-4" long) when she passed away, and I always just counted on homeowner’s insurance to cover it. I will look into getting specific coverage on it, thanks to you guys. :)</p>
<p>(I tell people I married DH for his piano, because I love playing and almost majored in it.)</p>
<p>We have always had a rider on our homeowners insurance. S is a grad student living in apartment, the appraisal and purchase of instrument are in our name, and instrument is covered under the appraisal filed with our homeowners policy. He teaches and makes some money playing, and the instrument is covered for this professional use. We have asked every conceivable question about the “what ifs” and are satisfied it is covered. </p>
<p>Good to know, lorelei. We didn’t think to ask all those questions so I’m glad to hear you got positive answers.</p>
<p>I went through that with my S’s violin we got last summer, and I ended up doing it as a rider on my homeowner’s policy and I asked all the questions too, about being in a dorm, about depreciation and so forth, and their answers and the terms of the policy were identical to what I was seeing from the dedicated dealers like Clarion (who I was turned off by the people I talked to), Total Dollar and Heritage (It took forever for someone from total dollar to call me back, I left several messages over a week, they finally got back to me, and then their quote was higher…and what if I needed to file a claim?). I’ll need to double check if he has an apartment rather than a dorm next year, but other than that, the rider we had was instrument specific, they take into account it is an instrument and the clauses on it were identical to what I saw with the dedicated ones. </p>
<p>This is interesting-- I consistently get a lower quote from Total Dollar than from Heritage and Clarion. </p>
<p>I checked into all of the above insurers when we purchased our instruments, and got the lowest quote from my homeowners insurance for the rider. And, from what I can gather here, the coverage is much the same, which is good to know.</p>
<p>is the lowest quote always the best? as with any insurance, I think the ability, speed, or willingness of the insurance to pay out claims is more important, no? :)</p>
<p>Certainly, but never had any trouble with our homeowners policy. Plus it’s a local person to deal with in our case, which is very convenient.</p>
<p>The big thing is that the coverage matches needs, that there aren’t exclusions on the policy that would cause the insurance not to pay off, for example, or if they decide that they can depreciate the instrument, which at least with a string instrument is idiotic. I have a relationship with my agent through my homeowner insurance, I have car and homeowners through them, and i have never had problems with a claim. And for the same policy, the homeowners was cheaper, in part probably because I have multiple things insured through them…but I made sure that they would cover repairs, and I checked the terms of the insurance against what the other companies had on their websites, so in that case, if all else seems equal, the cheaper quote may be better. I also had trouble getting through to several of the dedicated musical instrument insurance places, left messages, sent e-mails, and that isn’t a good thing,how will they be with a claim? With my homeowners, I have a 24 hour claim number to get things in motion., so that weighed in, too. </p>
<p>We have not made claims for small repairs, mainly want the insurance for major loss issues (theft, fire, destruction), do not want to rock the boat or make this version of coverage unavailable or more costly. </p>
<p>We put in a claim for a relatively big repair with no issues. The viola is covered on our homeowners policy currently, but that will need to change soon.</p>