Camera Insurance: What Is Insurance For Camera

Whether your camera follows you everywhere or you only use it occasionally, it can be a good idea to ensure it. Breakage, theft, oxidation, loss… the risks are numerous, as are the insurance offers! How to choose the right camera insurance for you? For what guarantees? Who to subscribe to? Overview of the different solutions.

Ensuring Your Camera: Three Solutions

Whether for a trip or for more occasional use, it may be helpful to ensure your camera and/or your accessories. The higher the value of your equipment, the more we recommend that you guarantee it! You have several options to protect your device:

• Via your home insurance: in principle, your equipment is covered against theft by your home insurance contract if the loss occurs inside your home. It is also possible to take out an extended warranty to further protect your camera: most contracts allow you to extend the cover to more risks such as breakage and oxidation and even to cover claims arising from outside your accommodation.

 

• Via specific insurance: there are some camera-specific insurances, most of the time offered with the purchase of your equipment to protect it from damage. This is called single-product insurance: it covers only one product designated in the contract (like an insurance for tablets or laptop insurance ). It can go by various names: “camera multimedia insurance” like at Darty or simply “camera insurance” like at Simplesurance or Pixel Assur. Guarantees vary from contract to contract.

 

• Via multi-product insurance: offered by insurers, distributors, banks, or even mobile telephone operators, this is insurance that covers all electronic devices under a single contract. You can take out portable device insurance, which includes electronic mobile devices (also called “all mobiles” insurance), or multimedia insurance, which has a slightly broader coverage (all multimedia products in the home are guaranteed, even non-portable devices). Carrefour, Macif, Groupama, Axa, Banque Postale… There are many multi-product insurance products on the market.

 

If the camera is equipment provided by your company as part of your job, you can take out professional insurance.

 

Attention, if the home insurance is generally compulsory, the guarantee protecting the electronic devices is not. However, your photo equipment is covered against certain risks by 2 legal guarantees: the legal guarantee of conformity and the guarantee against hidden defects. These 3 solutions are contractual guarantees: you are free to subscribe to them or not. Lasting 2 years each, they cover particular risks that are not of your own doing (manufacturing defects, hidden defects, etc.). You will therefore not be able to use these guarantees if the lens of your device is broken or if you have it stolen!

 

When To Insure Your Camera?

Specific uses, habits, or circumstances represent additional reasons for insuring your camera. Remember: disasters happen so quickly, we are never too careful! Cameras are generally quite expensive, and repairing or replacing them can be even more. The same is true for the various lenses and accessories, such as tripods, stabilizers, flash, etc. This is why we advise you to take out a guarantee in the following situations:

• Your equipment is expensive: for example, we recommend that you insure your reflex.

 

• Your camera is essential to the exercise of your profession (without it being your employer’s equipment): if you are self-employed, for example.

 

• You are going on a trip: whatever the destination, the risks are increased during such trips. You are on vacation and pay less attention. You frequent tourist places popular with pickpockets. Your device is heckled in transport. Claims occur more easily and frequently when traveling.

 

• You play sports, especially if it is an extreme sport. Cameras are more subject to shocks, falls, and immersion in water during leisure or sporting activities.

 

How To Choose Insurance For Your Camera?

It can be challenging to navigate among the many offers, like knowing the best protection for your photo equipment and the use you make of it. Here are some essential points to check before taking out such insurance:

• First, check that your camera is not already covered by your home insurance. If not, it may be worth considering an extension of warranty or taking out an option to cover the risk or risks that concern you.
• Likewise, your car insurance can cover your equipment with theft cover, which is often optional. However, this protection remains limited because it only concerns theft inside the vehicle.

 

• Choose insurance according to the value of your camera. For this, pay attention to the compensation ceiling provided for in the contract. A ceiling of €800 will not be sufficient for the breakage of a reflex camera at €1,500, for example!

 

• Be attentive to the exclusions of guarantees and the conditions of triggering guarantees. Depending on your situation, these conditions may be unfavorable to you and make the contract less attractive. Conversely, specific exclusions or conditions of the contract may not apply to you, so they will have no impact on you. Similarly, check if the contract provides deductibles and the rate of obsolescence applied.

 

The obsolescence of a device is defined by “the state of deterioration that time produces on it.” This percentage is deducted from the purchase price to obtain its actual value. It is calculated differently from one insurer to another and influences your compensation.

• Define your coverage needs: do you want to only ensure your camera for theft? Breakage? Is oxidation essential for you? Do you prefer the replacement of your new equipment or financial compensation? Be aware that the loss of your equipment is very rarely supported; insurers consider this an act of negligence on the insured.

 

• Reassure me offers you a free, easy-to-use, and anonymous tool, allowing you to obtain personalized insurance quotes in just a few clicks. Compare the competing offers: you will have a more precise market image. According to these results, you will decide which contract is the most interesting for you. To do this, use an online comparator.

 

Stolen Camera: What Does The Insurance Cover?

The theft of your camera will be covered in different ways depending on your contract. The entity that insures you decides on its own how it covers claims, depending on its commercial strategy, the formulas offered, etc. It must still respect what has been defined in your contract. Thus, in the event of theft, your insurance may allow you to replace your camera or financial compensation.

 

The basic form of home insurance covers the theft of your objects without taking out an option. Still, the theft must occur inside the dwelling. On the other hand, if you wish to cover the theft outside your home, you will often have to extend a guarantee for an additional premium.

 

A guarantee from your car insurance can also cover the theft of your camera. Still, under particular conditions: there must be a break-in to access the passenger compartment, the device not being visible, etc.

 

As a general rule, you have 2 days to report the theft of your camera to your insurer. Within this time frame, you must file a complaint with the police. Indeed, the complaint report must be sent to your insurer at the time of the declaration of the accident. You will then have to provide the proofs of purchase and other supporting documents requested.

 

How To Protect Your Camera From Breakage?

To cover your equipment against breakage, we advise you to opt for specific or multi-product insurance. Some home insurance companies may offer an exciting warranty extension for breakage. Still, the conditions for triggering the warranty are often restrictive.

 

Several breakage warranties exist: some only insure cases of breakage that render the device completely out of use. In contrast, others cover any cause, in any circumstances. Unlike theft, you have 5 days to report the damage to your insurer. Depending on your contract, you may receive financial compensation to replace your camera or repair it.

 

Depending on the value of your camera, we advise you to check the warranty exclusions of your contract: your insurance may only repair your equipment above a certain amount. Insurance contracts offering new replacements are the most interesting and the most expensive.