cambyses wrote:
I have already called Taylor and Taylor too. The initial estimate they gave me on the phone was almost the same as Hill & Usher quote. I am now waiting to receive their more accurate quote.
Thanks...
Did you make a final decision on your coverage yet?
I am strictly an amateur, but I have a lot of gear that I travel with. I have been insured with the NANPA Photo Insurance program for the past few years. I only joined NANPA at $100 per year to become eligible for their insurance. My membership and insurance are due to renew in the next couple of weeks.
Currently, I have about $27k in scheduled equipment, and $5k in unscheduled equipment covered, and my renewal premium is about $800. As an amateur, I do not need any type of liability coverage.
I received a quote from Hill and User that looks like the premium is about the same, but it has a higher deductible at $500 vs. $250.
My question is should I contact Taylor and Taylor?
Trying to reopen this discussion as I just started turning my hobby into a little freelance work at the local paper. I have a rider under homeowners for gear but as a freelancer that would not cover a loss now and my company (USAA) would have to send me elsewhere for a gear policy, plus it doesn't even have liability for me. For $48k in gear my policy would be about $1k annually with a referral to another provider and again, no liability included.
I know there is a solution out there and since this is evenings mostly the income isn't significant. Certainly it will cover policy costs, but I'm trying to balance the costs of doing business against minor part time income. Based on some of these costs I need to decide to do more to make it worthwhile or do less and make it a hobby.
I am also trying to determine if taxes will be better or worse as a business. Another part of the equation I need to figure out.
Forgot to ask, I'm assuming you can get a better policy on your own than with what comes with a membership to a group, but in my case I'm not positive that the "group" concept isn't better. I do mostly sports.
I ended up letting my NANPA plan expire and didn't renew my membership because I really only kept my membership to remain eligible for their insurance plan. I was extremely happy with the customer service I received from the insurance agency they use, and I only dropped them to reduce my insurance (and dues) cost.
Now, I am having some serious issues with Hill and Usher regarding equipment changes. Like many photographers, I buy new lenses, etc. fairly often and expect to add them to my coverage. I won't go into too many details here until I get my issues resolved. I would warn anyone that gets a proposal from Hill and Usher to get very clear guidance from them as to how equipment-list changes during the policy-year are handled as well as the costs to make those changes.
andyz wrote:
Forgot to ask, I'm assuming you can get a better policy on your own than with what comes with a membership to a group, but in my case I'm not positive that the "group" concept isn't better. I do mostly sports.
I have been told by my brother who has been in the property and casualty insurance business for many years as well as agents (for other types of insurance) that generally group plans offer better benefits due to the greater buying power the group has over a single insured. I tend to believe that's true.
AL904 wrote:
Now, I am having some serious issues with Hill and Usher regarding equipment changes. Like many photographers, I buy new lenses, etc. fairly often and expect to add them to my coverage. I won't go into too many details here until I get my issues resolved. I would warn anyone that gets a proposal from Hill and Usher to get very clear guidance from them as to how equipment-list changes during the policy-year are handled as well as the costs to make those changes.
I have experienced nothing but grief with equipment changes and Hill & Usher (Hartford).
All adds/deletes from your equipment list go through Hill & Usher and are then relayed to the carrier which in my case is The Hartford. I have experienced being threatened with cancellation for non-payment of premium (after paying over $750 upfront) and also bogus late fees. The worst of it all was when The Hartford claimed I had NO COVERAGE for my equipment because Hill & Usher allegedly never provided them with my itemized list of equipment, AFTER PAYING THEM OVER $750 UPFRONT!
I really don't know who is causing my grief. Hartford blames Hill & Usher and Hill & Usher blames Hartford. At the end of the day I am a customer of Hill & User and they need to step up
and take ownership of the problem and fix it. (Preferably without all the bogus late fees and nastygrams...)
Game Changer wrote:
I have experienced nothing but grief with equipment changes and Hill & Usher (Hartford).
All adds/deletes from your equipment list go through Hill & Usher and are then relayed to the carrier which in my case is The Hartford. I have experienced being threatened with cancellation for non-payment of premium (after paying over $750 upfront) and also bogus late fees. The worst of it all was when The Hartford claimed I had NO COVERAGE for my equipment because Hill & Usher allegedly never provided them with my itemized list of equipment, AFTER PAYING THEM OVER $750 UPFRONT!
I really don't know who is causing my grief. Hartford blames Hill & Usher and Hill & Usher blames Hartford. At the end of the day I am a customer of Hill & User and they need to step up
and take ownership of the problem and fix it. (Preferably without all the bogus late fees and nastygrams...) ...Show more →
I'm confident that our problems are with Hill and Usher. I notice that you are in Texas. I'm in Florida and Hill and Usher placed my policy with Atlantic Specialty (based in Mass). I'm familiar with The Hartford, but had never heard of Atlantic Specialty. Hartford is an old and well-established carrier that covered my vehicles for several years.
I'm now even more nervous about my situation! If I don't get a resolution soon, I'll be filing complaints with the Florida, Arizona, and Massachusetts departments of insurance. I am having nightmares about my gear being stolen out of my car.
A couple of days ago, in response to my complaints, I received a call from and had a long telephone conversation with one of the execs at Hill & Usher. She admitted that they had made an error in my billing, and agreed to correct it. She listened to my issues with their equipment-change system, and agreed to make several changes and to work with me. In the future I will only be charged additional premium for increases in my coverage limits resulting from adding new gear. Changes that I make by adding/removing equipment that net no increase will not be billed. After that call, I regained my confidence with their agency.
Yesterday, I received a revised (smaller) invoice from Hill & Usher that only charged me for the increase in coverage that resulted from my last change of equipment.
Everyone makes mistakes, and misunderstandings occur. I believe Hill & Usher is sincere in making things right.
cwebster wrote:
Beware of any policy that requires a police report for any theft, or that doesn't allow any theft claims if there are no signs of a break in, or that doesn't want an itemized list of equipment and their purchase prices. Also beware of hanging your equipment insurance as a rider on your homeowners ins. Often having one claim against your HO insurance causes your premiums to go up a lot, and having two claims is cause for them to drop you. Ref: State Farm.
<Chas> I had a drop last week and State Farm is dropping me now. They are also dragging their feet on the claim so I am down a body and my long glass.
I thought I remembered seeing or hearing something about CPS offering a policy, am I crazy on this? I need to do something fast!
What you get with TCP is service. It may cost a bit more, but when you need a rider late on Friday afternoon for a Monday morning shoot, they will get it done - as happened with me and Capitol Studios two months ago. They have on file all the commonly used places and contacts that typically need riders, so usually you just say it's going to that company or this film commission and it's done.
I would never use State Farm for anything. Very few people remember the big article in the LA Weekly (by Marc Cooper I think) about how, after the Northridge earthquake in '94, State Farm, which is required to offer earthquake coverage to all property owner insureds, was forging signatures on letters of declination in order to get out of having to offer the coverage. Never mind that the coverage is usually minimal, overpriced and not a good bet for most people, but who the hell wants to do business with a company like that. On a personal note, when I used to have an auto policy with them, they jacked my rates for a ticket I got on a bicycle. Only after pointing out that they didn't actually cover my actions on the bicycle, did they finally refund the overcharges, but what a pain in the ass they were.
Good subject!
I cover two ways:
1.PPA membership gives me $15K standard gear insurance, even on location.
These guys are great and cover the car break-in thing. They also offer extended insurance but I just want the basics from them. Also, they have pretty good benefits and other forums and boards for services like contracts, legal questions...etc. All for pretty cheap yearly membership.
2. Hil/Usher-Hartford covers my studios and over $300K gear, even for breakage by accident, which is awesome.
I went over the policy pretty well with them to make sure of all coverage for anything and everything. I had an employee accidentally drop a digital back once and it broke the IR filter over the sensor. That cost us $15K because State Farm didn't cover anything except total loss of entire studio. That was an expensive lesson!
I have not had to use them yet (thank goodness) but am reasonably confident I am much better insured now.
Like others here have said, I like the equipment list/spreadsheet of all my gear and studio supplies, furniture, computers, etc...and every time there is a change the emails and new policy updates are emailed immediately!
Egor wrote:
Good subject!
I cover two ways:
1.PPA membership gives me $15K standard gear insurance, even on location.
These guys are great and cover the car break-in thing. They also offer extended insurance but I just want the basics from them. Also, they have pretty good benefits and other forums and boards for services like contracts, legal questions...etc. All for pretty cheap yearly membership.
2. Hil/Usher-Hartford covers my studios and over $300K gear, even for breakage by accident, which is awesome.
I went over the policy pretty well with them to make sure of all coverage for anything and everything. I had an employee accidentally drop a digital back once and it broke the IR filter over the sensor. That cost us $15K because State Farm didn't cover anything except total loss of entire studio. That was an expensive lesson!
I have not had to use them yet (thank goodness) but am reasonably confident I am much better insured now.
Like others here have said, I like the equipment list/spreadsheet of all my gear and studio supplies, furniture, computers, etc...and every time there is a change the emails and new policy updates are emailed immediately!...Show more →
I had not heard of PPA, can you tell me more? Have you ever made a claim through them? seems a little to good to be true through the site... I would love to hear more on actual experiences.
Have you ever filed any claims? Would appreciate any feedback. The quote I got from them is ~$550 versus ~$800 with Package Choice by Hill & Usher. I haven't done line by line comparison of their respective policies, but the high-level aspects are similar:
- $1M liability,
- Same total gear value
- $250 deductible
- Coverage for the actual replacement cost (and not the depreciated value)
FYI, they said they wont cover me because I do any video work at all...even though its minimal.....rather cut and dry.
Jimna,
Sorry to say but fortunately, I have not had to use either insurance policy since getting them. So I can not answer your question about actual experiences using them.
As far as PPA looking "too good to be true", I don't think so, but thats just my opinion. They are a well established group with many members and a reputation, so I would hope they would honor their deals like the insurance.
I searched for claims they paid out and found a few statements that they depreciate the value of gear, which could be bad if you are counting on them for full replacement value. We just have them as extra insurance so that hopefully, between the two of them, we won't lose our shirts if we ever have another "tragedy"
Mr Joe wrote:
I'd recommend getting a quote from TCP insurance. Search the archives - lots of good experiences. I have $2 million liability and $15K in gear coverage for $525/year. http://www.tcpinsurance.com/
I have Hill & Usher and 17K in gear and 2 Million in liability and I'm paying 507.00
Game Changer wrote:
I have experienced nothing but grief with equipment changes and Hill & Usher (Hartford).
All adds/deletes from your equipment list go through Hill & Usher and are then relayed to the carrier which in my case is The Hartford. I have experienced being threatened with cancellation for non-payment of premium (after paying over $750 upfront) and also bogus late fees. The worst of it all was when The Hartford claimed I had NO COVERAGE for my equipment because Hill & Usher allegedly never provided them with my itemized list of equipment, AFTER PAYING THEM OVER $750 UPFRONT!
I really don't know who is causing my grief. Hartford blames Hill & Usher and Hill & Usher blames Hartford. At the end of the day I am a customer of Hill & User and they need to step up
and take ownership of the problem and fix it. (Preferably without all the bogus late fees and nastygrams...) ...Show more →
I make all my changes directly thru the Hartford, You are doing it wrong.
TCP here. Full replacement cost..so no saying new or used, no receipts. I provide an excel sheet of equipment every year. I have added equipment in mid year and even changed the inventory around by deleting some things and never had a complaint from them. In a day or so, I get a confirmation email that they have updated my list and the value.
I have just under 50K of equipment, and 2million in liability and I pay about $900
Now that being said, I have never filed a claim so who knows how good they are
I have TCP as my agent and the policy is underwritten by Great American. I have north of 100K in gear listed on the policy. I have had two different commercial studio locations also covered by my policy.
I HAVE made claims on my policy.
One was a burglary and one was a camera body that fell off a lens and hit a rock.
I am insured to a declared value for each piece of equipment. That means I pay XX dollars and expect to get the full declared value at minimum less my deductible of course. It also means *I* am responsible for maintaining my valuation and keeping it current. I do that annually or semi-annually.
My latest claim was pretty straight forward with them replacing my camera body with a newer model. The claim was handled by Great American after TCP took the info. The TCP staff even helped me decide if it was worth the increase in premium for making a claim compared to just replacing the body myself. It's always worth comparing potential increased costs vs eating the loss yourself. It turned out to be a better deal overall to make the claim, so I did.
As has been mentioned before they are fast getting riders added for locations that require it. They *know* the photography/cinema business.
Been with TCP for over a decade and like others have said, their service is top-notch. I probably pay more for it but I don't worry about my coverage at all.
Any suggestions for a policy that will cover you worldwide . . . particularly if you are going to be overseas for an extended length of time.
The Hartford, for example, will only provide equipment coverage for a maximum of 30 days outside the US.
Is the only option to get one policy for coverage when you are in the US and a second policy in the country where you are staying (ten what happens if you’re traveling to numerous countries over a longer period of time). Anybody had to address those coverage issues?
