Tips For Insuring Musical Instruments
A standard homeowners insurance policy will provide coverage for most types of musical instruments at a level which should be sufficient for casual musicians.
However, if you are a professional musician or own an expensive musical instrument, then you may want to consider taking out additional insurance because a standard homeowners policy will most likely not provide you with enough coverage against uninsured losses.
Such policies can be used to insure music instruments such as:
- Guitar
- Drums
- Violin
- Keyboard
- Saxophone
- Clarinet
- Flute
- Trumpet
- Cello
- Oboe
- Organ
- Recorder
- Bagpipes
In fact, regardless of whether you have a wind, brass, string, percussion, electronic or any other type of instrument, if you feel that it is valuable enough and you want to protect yourself against suffering a significant uninsured loss, then you would probably benefit from insuring it.
You should however, first check to see what type of cover your existing homeowners policy provides you with, as you may already be receiving adequate coverage under your personal possessions coverage C policy section.
But if you find that you are not receiving adequate coverage because you are still exposed to many uninsured risks, then you should seriously look into upgrading the level of coverage that you have.
Who Can Benefit?
Some of the types of people who could benefit from having music instrument insurance are:
- Musicians (professional/amateur)
- Singers
- Guitarists
- Drummers
- DJ
- Entertainers
- Pianists
- Concert performers
- Bands
- People who gig
- Theatre performers
Just about anyone who plays a musical instrument either on a professional, semi-professional or amateur basis could benefit from insuring it. This can be especially useful if a person owns many different instruments, or would like to collectively insure items for a music band which they are part of.
Why Should Musicians Be Insured?
The purpose of anyone insuring their music instrument is to be provided with financial compensation in the event that their instrument is lost, stolen or damaged.
When you are properly insured you will be able to quickly recover from your loss and get back to playing or performing again. If your livelihood depends on you being able to use and have access to your instrument, then insuring it could also be vital to your ability to make an income.
But you don’t have to be a professional musician to benefit from having insurance. You could for example, have a very expensive guitar that you would not be able to afford to replace by yourself if you did not have insurance for it.
Below we look at some of the different types of policies that are available to insure musical instruments and how to get the most coverage from them.
Using Your Home Insurance Coverage
With expensive musical instruments, most standard homeowners insurance policies will not provide sufficient coverage for any damages or breakages that occur.
A standard home insurance policy also tends to offer quite limited coverage for other causes of loss, and if your musical instrument is related to business use, then you will not be insured for any losses at all which occurred outside your home.
It is possible however, to add your musical instrument as a specific item to your homeowners policy. This will give you damage and breakage coverage, and protect your instrument against a much wider range of risks.
This option, also called scheduling, tends to be favored by parents who have young children as their musical instrument can be insured without having a deductible in their policy.
Scheduling can also be used to insure musical instruments for business use, however, in order to do this, you must add a business use endorsement to your musical instrument insurance in your homeowners policy.
Rented Instrument Insurance
If you rent a musical instrument then you are probably already paying to insure it as part of your monthly rental fee. Typically, this usually costs between $4-$8 a month, which works out to $48-$96 a year. It is possible however, to insure your rented musical instrument under your homeowners policy by scheduling it as described above.
The main advantage in doing so is that it will be a lot cheaper to insure, usually about $4-$8 a year rather than the $48-$96 a year you would pay by buying music insurance from a music shop.
If you do choose to do this, make sure that you tell the music shop which you have rented your instrument from that you are insuring your item elsewhere, as otherwise you won’t be able to get a discount from them. Be warned however, that not all music shops will let you do this because they can make more money selling you the insurance themselves.
What To Look For In Music Instrument Insurance
Although insurance policies can vary depending on the instrument that you have and the risks that you are looking to protect yourself against, there are some common things that you can expect to find regardless of where and how you insure your instrument.
Most musical instrument insurance policies for example, will insure any kind of instrument that you have. However, in order to ensure that you receive full compensation in the event that you ever need to make a claim, you will also need to have that item valued and listed for a specific amount in your policy agreement.
Basically, this tells the insurance company this is how much my instrument is worth, and this is how much I expect you to compensate me for if it is lost.
What you will usually find is that with newer or commonly found musical instruments, proving how much they are worth should be relatively easy to do. You could for example, provide a receipt to show how much you paid for it or point to other similar items which are being sold for a similar amount as to what you originally paid.
However, you may have more difficulty valuing your music instrument if it is very old or is rare, antique, unique or custom-built. This is because there will be fewer other examples that you could use to give an indication of its actual value.
For this reason, if you do have such an instrument, then it is recommended that you get it professionally appraised by an independent valuer in order to be able to list that item for a specific amount on your policy.
It is advisable to do this when you take out your policy, as if you leave this to when you need to make a claim, you may find out that your insurance company ends up paying you less, sometimes significantly less, than what your instrument was actually worth.
Insuring Additional Music Equipment
Once you have your instrument valued, you may then want to take out optional or extended coverage to insure accessory items such as:
• Music stands
• Guitar picks
• Strings
• Instrument case
• Tuning devices
• Bows
• Cleaning equipment
• Sheet music
• Amplifiers
• Speakers
• Leads
• Microphones
• Microphone stands
Anything that you typically use with your instrument can be insured, but this should only be done if the benefit from doing so outweighs the additional cost involved. If extended coverage is not cost-effective, then you are better off just paying to replace lost accessory items by yourself.
Coverage Types & Exclusions
Another point that is worth considering is that some policies will allow you to specify where you would like your coverage to apply. You may for example, choose to exclude it from your home, as in your home you are likely to be covered by your existing homeowners policy.
You could then take out a broad form or special form coverage policy to insure your instrument.
For amateur and semi-professional musicians, a broad form policy will probably provide you with a sufficient level of protection. Such a policy will insure your instrument against a specific list of risks. You will however, still be vulnerable to certain excluded risks which have been listed or risks which have not been specifically listed.
To give yourself the most comprehensive protection, you could opt for a special/open perils coverage policy. The name of this policy may vary between different insurance companies, but you will know the special coverage because it will usually be the most expensive policy they offer.
Such a policy is ideal for professional musicians as it insures you against a wide variety of risks, with only a few risks that will be specifically excluded. For the large majority of musicians however, these exclusions will not be anything to worry about as the chance of them happening to you is extremely low.
Common Exclusions
Below are listed some common exclusions in musical instrument insurance policies to give you an idea of some of the things that you will not be covered against. These will apply to both broad and special policies, although there are likely to be more exclusions for broad form policies.
• Earthquakes
• Volcanoes
• Floods
• Intentional damage
• Insect damage
• Normal wear and tear
• Deterioration over time
There may be some other exclusions, but in general, you should feel quite protected with a special form coverage policy.
What Do You Need?
As a rough guideline, if you play your instrument for non business purposes in your home then you can adequately insure your instrument with a homeowners insurance policy.
If however, you tend to play your instrument outside your home or for business purposes (i.e. you earn money from performing), then you may require a specialized musical instrument insurance policy to fully insure you.
Insurance Premiums
The more expensive your musical instrument is, the more you can expect to pay to have it insured. You can however, help to reduce your insurance costs by taking on a higher deductible.
When you have a higher deductible, what you are saying to the insurance company is that you are prepared to take on more risk. This means the insurance company takes on less risk, and as result, they reward you for their reduced risk by lowering your insurance premiums.
Having a higher deductible means that you pay a higher amount for every claim that you make before the insurance company is required to pay the rest. In other words, anything below your threshold limit, which is how much you have agreed to pay for your deductible, your insurance company will not pay and you will be required to cover the cost.
For small claims, you are therefore likely to end up paying for most, if not all, by yourself. For larger claims, your insurance company will then step in.
Having a higher deductible is a risk because if you make lots of small claims then they are going to take money out of your own pocket, and because those claims may not even exceed your deductible limit, you may not be able to make a claim anyway.
Where you can save money however, is with your lower insurance premiums as they will make your policy much cheaper to maintain.
Uninsured Risk Factors That Musicians Face
Taking out insurance is all about reducing your exposure to financial loss, and this also applies to musical instruments.
A study carried out by Allianz Musical Insurance for example, found that more than half of all musicians do not have insurance for their instrument. They also found that the average cost of an instrument was around £650 or $1000, which is quite a lot of money if you suddenly had to replace your instrument.
Obviously, you face the greatest risk if you use your instrument outside your home, and so this is also when you are likely to benefit the most from musical instrument insurance especially if your instrument is very valuable.
Some of the most common ways that musical instruments are lost include:
• Being stolen from car or van.
• Being stolen from home.
• Leaving instrument in venue after performance.
• Leaving instrument on a bus, train or taxi.
• Leaving instrument in hotel.
Overall, having musical instrument insurance can provide you with many benefits and protect you from uninsured financial risks.
However, as it is an additional expense that you will have to pay, you need to decide whether the risks you are exposed to are worth insuring yourself against, because if they are not, you are better off saving your money instead.
