Originally Posted by
Kevin Crisp
In slight defense of the insurance industry, the amount of fraud they face from their policy holders (let alone third parties) is pretty significant. Right after joining the CA bar I was assigned to work on the MGM Fire Case. Some 85 deaths and lots of injury claims arising out of the huge casino fire. Over the course of a couple years, I participated in 50 or so depositions of survivors. EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had just had a winning night in the casino, meaning that when they fled their room they left piles of chips on the nightstand. Wow.. And how, I wondered, do these casinos stay in business? And so many Rolex watches lost for which there were no receipts...
Unfortunately, I had to make a burglary claim against my homeowners' policy for camera equipment around 1990. I had receipts for most of the things. For ones that I didn't, you could see the equipment being used on vacation in some of my wife's pictures. I used quoted prices from B&H for replacement costs. They did pay me for an F4 as they couldn't find a new F3HP. That's replacement cost in action. Better than arguing what a used F3HP was worth. The adjuster commented that he'd never had such a thorough documentation on a loss. That didn't stop him from sitting on it with no payments for 90 days, but once prodded he paid 100%. I was particularly disappointed that a local well known camera retailer (starts with S****y's) took in lots of my LF equipment without doing the required running of serial numbers. My 8X10 Zone VI camera was located at that store, thanks to the assistance of Zone VI. I called S****y's and they said they bought it with "lots of other stuff," (i.e., all my stuff) but when the police showed up to claim the camera, they claimed it was only that one thing that we knew about.
Hopefully, you will all never have to go through that. But the small amount of time it takes to be prepared for the possibility makes dealing with it relatively easy. Type of a serial number list of your stuff. Put it all on a table and take a couple photos of it. Save receipts, but if you don't have it, the list and photos will get it done. Don't exaggerate.
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