Do you buy Insurance for Stereo Equipment?

You may actualy be able to schedule your stereo gear on a Musical instrument floater (or a personal article floater). It would provide broader coverage (maybe electrical surge/arcing) than a homeowners policy, probably lower deductible, offer, possibly, agreed or stated value (rather than actual cash value or replacement cost-neither buy you new gear)but, much higher premium. Your Homeowners policy in its standard form (assuming it provides theft coverage) doesn't have any limitation in its contents coverage (personal property of insured)provision for stereo gear, but, it is subject to your HO policy perils (fire/water/theft), deductible, and valuation provisions. In any event, the single most important thing you need to do is document your gear; original invoice's, ordering forms; I take time stamped photos and have even secured affidavits from my dealer over the years as to its condition/value as well as listeners (a 10 year old $50,000 amp would yield a few grand should it be stolen on a HO policy if you don't know how to navigate the waters). An HO policy with replacement cost provides "replacement with like kind and quality...". And that is (w/o your documentation) subjective by an insurance adjuster who has no idea a cable not made by monster can cost more than $100.

Hey, do you guys think there would be an interest if there was a program out there that you can buy nice, broad, easy to understand and read coverage (from a real insurance company) for your gear? Probably cost near what it costs to insure your wifes jewelry.

My house was burglarized 20 years ago and my entire stereo system was stolen which put my homeowners insurance to the test. I have to say I was 100% satisified with the way Nationwide handled the claim. All of our personal property items including the stereo and other electronics, silver and jewelry, was covered without question and we were reimbursed for each item that we replaced. Any items we chose not to replace were paid on some kind of discounted present value basis. The policy deductible applied of course, but only to the overall total. I was frankly anticipating some problems with the hifi gear since some of the models had changed since I bought them and retail prices had escalated a lot since the original purchases. However, there were no problems at all. It probably helped that we bent over backwards to be fair to the insurance company and we did have receipts for many of the items. Nevertheless, I felt somewhat vindicated when nearly all of my hifi equipment was located several months later and 3 states away. Even though Nationwide never questioned what I claimed was stolen, I wanted to say "See, I told you I really did own all this stuff."

Since the burglary, you can be sure that I fully document each purchase. I also keep the receipts in another location in case of a fire.

P.S. No affiliation with Nationwide except as a policyholder.