[geeks] Insurance

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Sunday, August 19, 2001 at 12:24:23 (-0500), Shawn Wallbridge wrote: ]
> Subject: [geeks] Insurance
>
> The last time I was in I got a rider for my machines and I spent a long time
> trying to convince the person that I wasn't running a business. I have
> doubled the number of machines now and I am expecting it to be worse.

I made the mistake of not letting my insurance company, Allstate, know
about my "expensive" home computer back in the late 1980s when I had a
tennant's contents replacement policy with them.

During the summer of 1989 a lightning strike right outside my window
zapped my TV, my stereo, my answering machine, my two modems, my DMD
5620 terminal, and my 3B2/400.

The non-computer stuff was replaced or fixed by the end of the week.

The Allstate rep told me to take the computer to AT&T for and estimate.
About a week later AT&T reported that it was completely toast.

A brand new machine (they were still selling them then) would have cost
about $20k, which was damn near the total allowed by my tennants policy
(which I had that high more because I've quite a library of books).  The
insurance agent suddenly got all uppity and claimed I must be doing
business work on the system and flatly refused my claim.  I got mad.  I
went right to the top of Allstate Canada.  They finally came back and
said they'd OK a replacement if it was a used machine.  I got a quote
for such a machine for about $7,500 and miracle of miracles but they
finally paid it.  That was almost a year later.

When the policy came up for renewal I went to a friend in the business.

> I am not looking forward to the $$ for the rider this time. Do you guys even
> get riders? Our normal insurance covers up to $2500, which is no where near
> enough. How do you insure a cray (what about three?)?

Don't go to Allstate!  ;-)

I need to increase my contents rider too.  I've neglected doing so since
we moved and I'm sure the value of our stuff has vastly increased since
then (and I'm not sure I properly estimated the cost of replacing my
library of books either).  The good news is we're half-way between two
not-so-distant fire departments, and we're only a block off the main
street.  Our agent says that helps a lot!  ;-)

Some of the more expensive equipment is on APC UPS units too, which as
far as I know still have their equipment replacement warrantees in
place, so I'm a bit less worried about lightning damage now....

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods at acm.org>     <woods at robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>;   Secrets of the Weird <woods at weird.com>