Stewart K said:
How does it work with insurance companies regarding the valuation of your individual items if you do not have a receipt (I have bought a couple of lenses 2nd hand) for each of the items?
Check with your insurance company/agent – some policies require a receipt to provide coverage, therefore secondhand gear is not coverable (although on occasion when selling lenses, I have had the buyer asked me to generate a receipt).
Mikehit said:
This is why some people take photos of all their valuables (and/or keep a record of all serial numbers, and it's why I register all my gear with Canon.
I do have pictures and a list of serial numbers for my gear. I
had registered all my Canon gear with them, which provided a convenient list of models and serial numbers for EOS, PowerShots, and video gear. But when they redesigned their website they lost all of that information. I contacted their support, their advice was to re-enter all of it (a PITA as I have a
lot of gear), I saw no point as they've demonstrated they cannot be trusted to maintain the data. Following that, I haven't even bothered registering any new purchases with them. The proof of purchase is what you need for warranty service, online registration does not help for that. The main purpose of registering your gear is for Canon's demographic research – the convenient online list seemed a reasonable trade-off, but given the fact that they lost my data and their redesigned website is crap for navigation, it's not worth my time to share demographic info with them.