Insurance for Camera gear

[Jeffrey]

I have a policy written in the USA through Great American specifically for photographers; owned equipment, rental equipment, liability, and office equipment. The coverage is world-wide and includes travel insurance on equipment. I'm much more comfortable with this policy than with an endorsement on my homeowner's policy. I'm not a pro but have some gear that is expensive.

[preppyak]

I've been wondering about this myself, is it possible to insure my gear if I'm not a homeowner?

I'm not a home-owner either, no problems getting the insurance. As another user mentioned, it might be why my rate was a little higher, but, it could also be that I'm in a big city and my gear is a higher risk of being stolen

[cayenne]

The other big thing the photo insurance will do is also give you liability coverage, not just overage for equipment. So if someone falls on your set or something, you're covered. Likewise, if something happens and you lose all the photos for someone's wedding, or something like that, you can be covered for that. Take a look at some of the photography professional organizations, they generally have some deals with various insurance companies for a discount if you're a member.

As a noob...what would be dome good photography organizations for me to join....as suggested above?

Thanks,
C

[Aronek]

Would definitely read the fine print... it's not like you can start being careless just because you got the insurance. I don't know if it is really necessary, if you keep everything on you all the time... depends on where you are going to in Europe aswell....

[RLPhoto]

I Use Hill & Usher. Good company.

[canon816]

I have State Farm personal articles policy, $7.60 per year per $1000 coverage (apparently less than half the cost of 'save money in 15 minutes or less with Geico' ), no deductible, full replacement, worldwide coverage for loss/damage/theft/etc.

With any of these 'personal' options (which explicitly state that the gear is not used to make money, and the policies are much cheaper than business policies), you have to be careful submitting claims.  Generally, these policies are linked to your homeowner's/renter's policy, and claims are reported to the CLUE database which tracks such things.  That database is used to determine rates and eligibility for homeowner's coverage, i.e. too many claims and your home insurance rates go up or your policy may be dropped (yes, they can do that!).

+1  I use state farm as well with a personal articles policy.  No deductable.  no questions asked.  Full replacement value coverage.  (i.e. I have a 300mm f2.8 IS lens that I bought for $4500 several years ago.  The replacement for this is now the Version II so I was able to increase my coverage to $7200 on this lens so that if anything happens to it I would get  new replacement lens)