Flood Insurance??

Yes,

 

Peerless Insurance through the TCA will cover your collection in the event of flood along with other perils. Check it out at jabash.com

Rich

My insurance (Farm Bureau) give me this information to check out: American Collectors Insurance. americancollectors.com.  I have not researched it much due to still looking for a good software inventory program. I have tried a few programs and have some on order. It will take a lot of time to put my train inventory in and I want the right program before I do that. I know pictures are wanted and all kind of other stuff. Once you come up with a total of what you think your collection is worth and can prove it, you then pay a premium in addition to your home owners depending on the value of what ever your collecting. Hope it,s some help.

Larry

Hi Trainman9

Do you have to be a member of TCA to get that?

Larry

 

The only entity that underwrites flood insurance is the US Gov't.  Property & Casualty companies generally do not cover flood losses. 

 

I was going to suggest going to the TCA insurance program.  And I asked this question of them months ago - but double check.  I believe they do cover flood damage to train collections.

 

So the way you get coverages on 'flooding' in the basement is this way:

How did the water get into the basement?  If the answer is the foundation leaked, the roof blew off, a pipe broke, then it is water damage caused by another event.  If the water just rises (or the ocean if you are that close) and it rolls into the house, then that is a flood.  It gets tricky with hurricanes becasue you have wind and rising waters.  Usually in a wide spread storm, a state insurance commission will promise the company that if they ever want to write another policy in the state they will cover the losses from a hurricane under most property policies. 

 

 

My insurance has many disclaimers, I live in Kansas City.  State Farm would not cover enough to insure for a back up( sump pump failure) unless I had the collection professionally appraised.  The prices change so rapidly, I do not know how an appraisel would ever be accurate.  If the published tca prices are used they are inflated, if eBay or auction house prices are used, probably to low and too oftentimes the products are miss represented.

Also if a down spout was not in place, they would not cover the claim.  I ended up going with travelers, and paid for the increase amount to increasee the standard  back up insurance.  I am told this will cover me, but hard to say until the incident happens.   I have heard good things about the insurance through tca, but it is more pricey

I do not know. Go to the web site and find out. I'm a TCA member but don't have a need for the insurance.

 

BTW: We have flood insurance for our beach home in NC. It is through Travelers Insurance but underwritten by the Federal Flood Insurance Program. It covers up to $250K for the building and $100K for personal property. So, if we had trains at this house they would be considered personal property.

We got water in our home here in PA a number of years ago. We had a severe ice storm followed by a rain storm. Water ran off the roof, hit the ground in front of the attached garage door and came into the house.

 

Our family room flooded and we lost carpet but not much else. I called the insurance company to file a claim and was told "as soon as the water hit the ground and came into the house it is considered flood". Since we do not have flood insurance here we had no coverage.

 

I contacted a Public Adjuster company and was told the same thing.

Trainman9

I will do that. My coverage is 100K plus for personal property but, like trainman52 my trains, guns, and wife jewelry max at just a few thousand. I then eat the rest. Farm bureau says that kind of stuff needs coverage by additional premiums. Guess I have more research to do.

Thanks for your reply.

Larry

Thanks all

One final word of advice. Before you buy more or different coverages you should determine what you have. Take out your policies and list the coverages -- they all have a letter and a name -eg, Fire, Theft, Mysterious Disappearance, Hurricane, Contents, Furs and Jewelery, Collectibles, Detacted Buildings, etc, etc. Then list the $$ maximums covered and these all eat into the overal Contents Maximum in case of a total loss. You then should be able to know what additional coverages you may want to purchase and detrmine what the $$ costs would be. You can then determine for yourself if a 'self-insurance program' might be a better alternative for you. This requires discipline, but putting $200 per month (an estimate of what the real premium for the coverages would cost) into MM account that is never touched except for the water a damage incident for example, may be a cheaper way to fund your disaster recovery. The costs of the additional coverages can be very very high.  I believe in insurance - grad of the College of Insurance - but it is easy to go too far.

 

Ralph

For those with basements or elevated homes, the flood coverage on personal property or lower level of elevated homes is restricted.  check with your agent, you may not want to buy it, if it won't cover your losses in those areas. 

 

Many companies offer National Flood Insurance under the program, but the policy is the same for everyone.

 

Mort

 

 

Insurance that covers flooding is only underwritten by U.S. Gov't AND it only is for areas that are designated flood areas by the US Army Corps of Engineers (FEMA maintains maps of what is/is not flood area).  I live at 600 feet above sea level.  I can not get flood insurance even if I wanted to.  I am not in a flood zone.

 

If I did get flood insurance, I would buy the policy from an agent (Nationwide, All State, etc.), but the backer of it would be Uncle.  The reason it is done this way is so that you can wrap you property insurance and only have to deal with one agent.  The agency would be the one to deal with FEMA on your behalf for a flood claim.

 

The TCA program is worth considering.  I actually do not have it but am contemplating it.

 

PLEASE check with the firm (noted earlier in this thread) and do not take my word, but I think $100 a year covers something like $12,000 worth of stuff.  But remember you ahve to factor into that amount:  track, tansformers, display cases, buildings, etc.  Anything you paid to stick on that layout.  If you think about it, you can easily shoot over $12,000 if you have been at this for years.  But do not tell the wife!  ;-)

 

Regards.

 

 

The subject of collection insurance comes up periodically on these boards.

As far as I know, one does have to be a member of the TCA to buy their collection insurance. It is considered a benefit of membership.

Blanket insuance costs 75 cents per hundred  thousand, max insurance is $200,000 and $5,000 per item.

Scheduled insurance costs 60 cents per hundred thousand.

 

The TCA collects a fee on either type of policy. When you get a scheduled policy, the TCA certifies the values you place on your goods.

 

The web site also lists a policy available through the NMRA.

This policy also offers layout coverage.

 

Here is a direct link to the JA Bash web site.

 

http://www.jabash.com/tcaindex.htm

 This is true.

 This is a flood.

 

 This is not a flood.

Leaks from freshwater and sewer plumbing, HVAC, etc., are not floods.  Water backups(sumps, nearby creeks, lakes, high water table, ground saturation, storm or septic backup, and groundwater intrusion are floods.

 

 

 

 

The flood insurance has a $2500 total loss coverage.  If you have for argument sake $50,000 worth of trains destroyed by a flood, you only get $2500 back.  This is based on my discussion with a FEMA claims examiner.

 

The TCA insurance is kind of pricey, but might be worth it.

Our flood insurance policy provides $250,000 worth of coverage for the structure and $100,000 worth of coverage for contents. The deductible is $2500.

Insurance that covers flooding is only underwritten by U.S. Gov't AND it only is for areas that are designated flood areas by the US Army Corps of Engineers (FEMA maintains maps of what is/is not flood area).  I live at 600 feet above sea level.  I can not get flood insurance even if I wanted to.  I am not in a flood zone.

 

This is not true. Our house in Duck NC is not in a flood zone and we have flood insurance through Travelers Insurance. It is underwritten by the Federal Flood Insurance program.

 

You don't need to be in a flood zone to get coverage. The cost of the policies is determined by whether the property is in a flood zone. If the property is in a designated flood zone the cost is much higher, I think $2500 per year. Since we are not in a flood zone the cost of our policy is $325.00 per year.

 

 

Thread Related:

 

I tried to note earlier, and a few have provided clarity, the casue of the water going into one's basement is the determining factor as to whether it is a 'flood', or water damage casued by some other non flood event.

 

That is what the original poster needs to consider on what kind of insurance they can get or need to get.

 

 

Thread Tangent, but possibly Interesting/Informative ...

 

Trainman 9: 

 

Travelers is your representative on behalf of FEMA, the entity in our gov't that manages flood policy for the USA.  That policy management process includes deciding how much to charge you (via Travelers); identifying flood zones; and prediciting where floods are likely to occur over future intervals.  The price of the policy is RISK based.  If there is a higher risk of flooding, the policy will cost more.  If a lower risk of flooding, less.  FEMA has very sophisticated models that make that determination.  The fact that you are beach front may be irrelavant.  It is how high above mean sea level and how high the water is predicted to go above that point that dictates what you pay.  Federal flood insurance is realtively cheap becasue you have a large pool of policy payers and a realtively small amountfo claims - well, maybe not this year.  And remember, FEMA is out to cover losses, not make money like a shareholder owned company.

 

If you can get flood insurance from another entity (and I stand corrected, they can provide it but it is very expensive) it is on that company's risk metric, and the policy is based on the overall risk of flooding claims within the company.  FEMA's is based on flooding across how many policies?  Alot more than an individual company will ever underwrite.  Thus another reason for the lower price - more people in the risk pool with FEMA, than with a policy Travelers might offer.  Not all companies will offer flood insurance - if they do it's a risk that they take that you will never have a claim, but if you do they want to make sure they charge you and the other few plocy holders enough to pay for the claims spread out among all the policy holders for flood insurance.  

 

Bottom line: if you do not live in a flood zone, you will not be able to get FEMA (federal) flood insurance.  If you are outside a flood zone, you may be able to get flood insurance from a few companies that will provide it - but they will charge you ALOT of Mikados for it.

 

 

 

 

 

Bottom line: if you do not live in a flood zone, you will not be able to get FEMA (federal) flood insurance.  If you are outside a flood zone, you may be able to get flood insurance from a few companies that will provide it - but they will charge you ALOT of Mikados for it.

 

 Let me repeat this again. Our house in Duck NC in the outer banks is not, I repeat not, in a flood zone according to the Army Core of Engineers mapping. We have Federal underwritten flood insurance. It just happens to be serviced by Travelers.

 

So, therefore since we are not in a flood zone, according to you, we should not be able to by Federal underwritten flood insurance.

 

Just where do you get your information??

Check this out:

 

Am I eligible for flood insurance?

You must live in a community that participates in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to qualify for National Flood Insurance. Find out if your community participates in the NFIP and the kinds of NFIP resources available in your community.

Back to Frequently Asked Questions: Considering Purchasing a Policy

 

My community here in PA participates therefore I can get flood insurance even though I am not in a flood zone.

 

 

 

Trainman52 (the original poster):

 

Check with your own insurance company and just tell them the scenarios as to whether you can get coverage. If you are a member of TCA, try the insurance company they utilize. I suspect anyone can buy insurance through the agent in Pittsburgh that does it for TCA, there may just be a different price for non-TCA due to some special arrangement with TCA. Speculative on my part, but a guess.

 

Other entities also offer coverage for collections. Try them as well.

 

You can get anything insured for almost any event. But it is all what the underwriter percieves as risk and what you are willing to pay.

 

 

Trainman 9:

 

Way off topic now.  Just contact me off line.

 

Short answer to your question:  FEMA

 

Insurance is a very arcane business.  Throw into that the federal government.  You want straight up/down answers.  Questions about insurance are complex, especially when you are dealing with trying to identify who and what is covered by catastrophic losses.

 

 

 

Trainman 9:

 

Way off topic now.  Just contact me off line.

 

Short answer to your question:  FEMA

 

Insurance is a very arcane business.  Throw into that the federal government.  You want straight up/down answers.  Questions about insurance are complex, especially when you are dealing with trying to identify who and what is covered by catastrophic losses.

 

Could not agree more. No reason to contact you off line you simply do not know what you are talking about.

 

I repeat, you can get flood insurance underwritten by the Federal Flood Insurance program whether or not you are in a flood zone. It is all dependent on if your community participates. The lower the risk the lower the premium.

 

Just got off the phone with my local Allstate agent and they confirmed what I have been saying.

 

You are just confusing the matter.

 

This thread is going on and on with a lot of mis-information and opinion. When it comes to matters like this, consult an expert not the opinions of forum members.  Well intentioned as they might be, the TRAIN FORUM posts isn't not the place to get this information. There are a lot of complexities to insurance.  The TRAIN FORUM doesen't have experts. A very early post by John, I believe, said it all.

Ralph

And with Ralph's excellent summation and solid advice, this thread is locked.