antique firearms-insurance

[BrotherRockeye]

I just bought my first antique revolver and it came to mind that since they aren't registered they possibly aren't insured.
I'm thinking this because two friends had their rifles and gear stolen out of the truck when they stopped for lunch at a rural hotel while hunting.The registered rifle was covered by insurance but the unregistered was not.
How does a guy go about making sure he's covered just in case.The possibility of theft is pretty much non existent but I like to cover my arse.
Would it be covered as contents?
Would I need to add it to my policy?
Any insight from the long timers would be grand.

Much obliged.

 

[mooncoon]

More or less anything legally owned is covered. Your friend's unregistered rifle was not covered either because it was not legally owned (ie no registration) or because he could not prove its existence. If I have a tv or a stereo stolen from my house, it is not registered but it is covered. I think the main thing is to document their existence particularly have good photos of them. If you still have a bill of sale for your guns so much the better. If you have a lot of guns or ones of very high value, you may require a rider on your basic policy. That rider however can be fairly expensive and you might prefer to invest in a very good safe. You might recall a posting somewhere on gunnutz about a person losing 500,000 worth of firearms. If the rider was in the vicinity of 1.5% you would be looking at $7000 per year which makes a $2000 fireproof safe look pretty good relative to loss from home.

cheers mooncoon

 

[BrotherRockeye]

thanks moncoon,
that makes sense,and documenting existence will be easy with pics and RCMP letter.
I'm not really worried about theft,I was more or less wondering.I have a dedicated gun room and am so far off the beaten path on a dead end road that we don't even get stray traffic.
Folks have trouble finding the place with directions,and you wouldn't know my gun room is a gun room unless you managed to break into it...if you could find it.
Fire is the only real danger,but I have countless smoke detectors etc. because I heat with wood...of course they're useless when I'm not home,unless I can train the dogs to run fire extinguishers.
thanks for the reply.

 

[mooncoon]

While on the subject, something to worry about is a term called co-insurance. What this means is that if you insure your house for less than its true value, your insurance pays out in proportion to the difference. In other words if you have a 200K house insured for 100k and had a fire which caused say 20k in damage, you would be compensated for only 10k or 50% of the damage. Many might think they were insured for up to 100k worth of damage but that is only partially correct. This may be significant for things like property loss from the house where the household contents are insured as a percentage of the value of the house. The issue came up recently with regards to insurance for our clubhouse and buildings; we have not had an assessment for many years and need to have a current assessment done.

cheers mooncoon

 

[Dantforth]

When playing "high stakes poker" with insurance companies remember.....they always hold all the cards and they also make and change the rules when it is to their advantage. Insurance companies no longer except any risk!!! It is always better to be your own insurance company.

 

[dingus]

BEST Insurance policy= Buy Fireproof safes. Put them in places where no one would think to Look.
Hideing a Safe any Safe is a good plan cause them Theives can break into Any safe once they find it.
Have more than one if you have alot of Antique Pistols Spread em out.

But like you i worry more about fire than Theft cause i have 3 dogs and ones a mean sucker.

So you can buy them Decent fireproof safes for a couple hunderd bucks and fit like 5 or 6 nice sized Revolvers in them.
I got mine at Can tire it was Reduced it was normally like $170 i got it for $90.

Haveing the Safes where you can get to then fairly easy is good two most only have a 1 hr Fire rateing so if there near the outside edge of a burnt building better chance to get to the Safe with Water ect.

I agree with Dantforth 100% to! Be your own insurance company with stuff like guns ect.

 

[BrotherRockeye]

a fireproof safe is a good idea,and would make a good night stand beside the bed...to hold a lamp...an such.