Review Photoguard Insurance Claim

SimonTALM

Linford Christie
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Simon
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Following my little incident with my 18-135mm lens where it met the floor I thought I'd post a little review of my experience with Photoguard Insurance at the time it really matters.

Conclusion
All in all I found Photoguard OK to deal with, a simple claims process which took just under a month from claim to replacement being in my hands which could have been made faster if I was interested in chasing and acting immediately to requests. I have two minor gripes
1) I had to pay to send the lens to them at their request.
2) Their suppliers were slow to respond once the pay out had been agreed, and I needed to chase them.

No excess?
Photoguard has a minimum claim they will entertain of £100 but as I was above this I was fine. I was disapointed to have to personally pay to ship the broken lens to the insurer, but as they don't have an excess on your claim perhaps this can be forgiven. Although it would have been nice for them to make this clear up front on the claim form.

Information
There is alot of information I needed to gather when I submitted the claim along with the Claim form and photos of the damage I was asked to send.
- Proof of ID (e.g. copy of Driving Licence / Passport)
- Proof of address (e.g. copy bank statement / utility bill with details blanked out)
- Proof of purchase (e.g. Receipt or CC statement showing purchase)


Waiting
Photoguard expect you to notify them immediately of an incident and then you have 30 days in which to send (post or email a scanned copy) the claim form - they then promise to get back to you within 3 days. In my case on the 2nd day (after I phoned to check they received the claim) they responded with a request to send them the lens for inspection, after they received this they then had another 3 days in which to review and respond again. On the third day they contacted me to say that they had approved the claim. As you can see they kept their promises with regards to time scales and the only real delays in the process was either down to me not sending things immedately due to my business travel meaning that information was usually at the other end of the country when Photoguard requested it.


Pay out
I found the most frustrating part of the process was once the insurer had agreed to pay out and passed the claim to their suppliers (1st Cameras) for them to ship me a replacement. The email early Friday morning notifying me of this said that their supplier would contact me to make the arrangements. I had to contact the insurers twice (Tuesday and Wednesday) before I spoke to 1st Cameras and arranged the replacement to be shipped to me.

Hire Costs
Included in my policy was the cost of hiring replacement kit, I didn't request so I can't comment on this element of the insurance. I will say that the option of Hiring wasn't mentioned by the insurer - make of this what you will.

Taking out the Policy
As with the majority of insurance taking the policy out and paying them money is really easy, simple online forms to complete. All items over £100 must be individually listed and all items over £250 must have their S/Ns recorded. When you do this you also specify a value of unlisted kit that you want covered and the total value is all added together which produces the quote. You can then add Theft From Vehicle cover (provided the kit is out of sight and the kit is not left in the car over night), Public Liability and Cover outside UK to the mix too.

Updating the Policy
I also recently added my D200 + Grip, 35-70 f2.8, 80-200 f2.8 and Manfrotto 055ProB to the insurance which adds about £2000 to the value of the insured kit (almost double) and cost me £12 for the remainder of my policy (1 month 19 days). I also have to now add my replacement lens to the policy as the cover doesn't transfer (this will cost me a small amount of money as there is a fee to produce the documents). Personally I'll wait until the 19th April and add it to my policy on renewal.
 
A good post Simon - my gear is not insured, as it seems impossible out here to get any sort of decent cover. I am sure lots of people here will benefit here from your post - many thanks.. !
 
Simon,

Sounds like you've had a half decent experience there, some pushing but on the whole, it sounds like a generally fair process.

I find it reassuring that someone I am insured with seems to follow through on their promises (Unlike E&L it seems! :thumbsdown:).

It'd be interesting to hear people's experiences with other insurers so we can get a good picture of who to use and who to avoid!

Thanks for sharing!! :clap::clap:

Matt
 
Sounds like a fairly "standard" insurance experience. I don't think I've ever had an insurance claim that hasn't required some pressure on the insurer to get things sorted, but at least they sorted it out in the end and it only really cost you shipment of the lens to them.
 
i wont do a review of photoguard because the auto censor will turn it into a page of asterisks

Gary,

I think if you've not had a good experience with Photoguard you should share.

Though, if I remember wasn't your incident the theft of kit you left overnight in the press room at a motor racing circuit :( ? I seemed to have missed the final outcome; I take it that photoguard didn't pay out - what was their reasoning?
 
For those whose use is amateur maybe it's worth checking your home contents policy. I did and Esure assured me that it was all covered as long as no single item was more than £1,000 to replace. Even with the total coming to just under £5,000 they were happy with it. Just hope I don't have to put them to the test!
 
Useful post ... I was with them last year and will sign up again before my next Africa trip. My gear isn't really at risk IMO at the moment. Good to get some reassurance.

My experience is insurance companies pay out if you meet the insurance criteria. If you don't then they won't. No grey areas. Each person needs to check the policy wording.
 
I've been with them for 18months,
found them to be great

i had an accident with my P&S....a replacement did take some time to organise, but that was because I had to send the camera off. Once the process was taken care of 1st cameras were spot on. I was even given the option of upgrading from the item/cost specified by PG which was exactly the model I expected for replacing my Ixus.

2nd claim, pretty quickly sorted. accidental again. dropped 50mm 1.4 canon.
The chap who contacted me wanted to see the lens (I paid to send that). no problem with proof of purchase. An ebay receipt and paypal print out was sufficient. Then I was told they couldn't source it for the price I'd specified, so there was an excess...however, when I told them I could get it for under that price, they were happy that I buy it. On purchase, I e-mailed the paypal and shop receipt (one-stop digital) and they sent me a cheque for the item including the delivery (paid extra as I didn't want any problems). The cheque took 3 days to reach me.
no complaints at all from my end. just make your claim, be thorough and provide them with the required details.
I've heard about car details on their policy regarding saloons and hatchbacks (requiring steering wheel locks). But so far they've been pretty good to me.
 
Hi

Can anyone recommend an insurance company for professional photographer looking to insure kit (theft, damage etc) that offer replacement cover; and also offer public liability insurance?

Any good experiences?

Thanks
:- )
 
I checked with my Home Contents insurers, Nationwide recently. As another posted said, as long as no individual item comes to more than £1000 then you are covered. It is an all risks policy, so maybe that is the difference?

When questions about a 'single item' they said that the body was an item and each lens was an item. If it were stolen from the boot of my car, it would be covered. I thought that this was great as i had expected to pay a premium.

Ask your contents insurers before buying additional cover - from my experieince with holiday insurance, if you have a loss and you have contents cover the holiday insurance tries to recoup the loss from the contents anyway.

Chris
 
I checked with my Home Contents insurers, Nationwide recently. As another posted said, as long as no individual item comes to more than £1000 then you are covered. It is an all risks policy, so maybe that is the difference?

When questions about a 'single item' they said that the body was an item and each lens was an item. If it were stolen from the boot of my car, it would be covered. I thought that this was great as i had expected to pay a premium.

Ask your contents insurers before buying additional cover - from my experieince with holiday insurance, if you have a loss and you have contents cover the holiday insurance tries to recoup the loss from the contents anyway.

Chris

My home insurance specifically only covers items like cameras, watches etc as long as you don't take them out of the front door.......:thinking:
 
You should try ING Direct, as my photographic equipment is covered up to £10,000 (made sure I am more than covered after what happened fairly recently), in and away from the home, for loss, theft, accidental damage.

Home contents covered for £50,000 as standard and the premium is £27 and pennies per month. Also covers my carbon fibre road bicycle in and away from the home, including accidental damage
 
Not until you need to upgrade;)

lol.......i don't know who would seriously risk 'dropping' their pride and joy and risking having their claim refused....although if someone wants to try this with their 1d/d3 please feel free to post on youtube!

with photoguard, are you covered for salt water damage? i'm close to the sea and like to take the odd shot on the beach etc, i'd like to know if there was a freak wave or if i dropped my gear that i'd be ok.
 
i've actually had my 40d + a couple of lenses on photoguard for a while, now i've gone up to a 1 series i really want something thats considered 'all risks' (save leaving unattended in a vehicle, i don't drive anywhere, and obvious negligence). i don't know, i guess i'm a bit cynical is all...
 
i spoke to photoguard today, they advised that negligent care of your camera wasn't covered, but exposure to water through an accident etc would be.
 
:ROFL:

I would also like to hear more from Badgerbaiter....

now known as Gary

to cut a long story short.. i left my camera and lens (approx £2500) in a locked media centre at brands hatch.. next morning it was gone.
photoguard refused to pay up because I left it unattended.

lessons learned
1) never let your equipment out of your site
2) dont insure with photoguard.. i've read stories of people leaving their cameras in fields and their non photographer specific insurance has paid up no questions asked

the most annoying thing was that i bought the camera with a loan, so i was still paying it off for 2 years and nothing to show for it.
 
and whilst i'm moaning (again), the same company (cycleguard) insured my bike.
it was nicked from the secure underground car park (locked to railings). cycleguard refused to pay more than half the cost of the bike because it was in a communal area. had i have locked it on the other side of the railings in the street it would have been OK (or read that as they would have found some other small print reason not to pay up)

so, they arent my favourite insurance company.
 
and whilst i'm moaning (again), the same company (cycleguard) insured my bike.
it was nicked from the secure underground car park (locked to railings). cycleguard refused to pay more than half the cost of the bike because it was in a communal area. had i have locked it on the other side of the railings in the street it would have been OK (or read that as they would have found some other small print reason not to pay up)

so, they arent my favourite insurance company.


To lose one parent insurance claim is unfortunate.........:naughty:
 
Thanks for sharing, I'll add them to my list of companies to avoid!
On a more positive note, I once bought a second hand digital camera on ebay, I paid for it through Paypal on my credit card and after just owning it for a day I dropped it on a tiled floor and it broke. The credit card company (Sainsburys Bank) gave me 100% of the money I spent on it to put towards a new one!! I was well impressed as it was a second hand item and it was my fault it got dropped.

I now buy everything on my Sainsburys credit card.
 
whatever you do DONT choose E&L they have clauses for there own smallprint and I dont know anyone who has had a satifactory clam through them yet
 
With regard to photoguard hire policy they will only pay for hire IF the claim is approved so if the claim takes 3 weeks as mine did you have to take the chance, pay for the hire and hope they approve the claim or you are well out of pocket.
 
Cheers With this information I think I would not be able to claim for my Sigma 70-200mm if any thing where to happen as I have lost the repict for it and paid for it with cash, Which is worrying.

Stuart
 
Not a camera insurance policy but Aviva covered my kit when I was burgled.... they were an absolute nightmare though, more specifically the loss adjusters (Crawfords) were incredibly bad, almost to the point of making me give up. They moved the goalposts so many times with proof of ownership etc it was untrue. That was after trying to use small print stuff to get out of the claim entirely in direct conflict with the guidelines of the Insurance Ombudsman. I got there in the end but it took about six months. I really should get some specific insurance.
 
Digging up an old thread here.

Has anyone else had to make a claim with photoguard for theft.
Its never nice being mugged :(
 
Oh, and just so people know, before I took out the insurance with Photoguard, I emailed them regarding receipts/bank statements etc as I don’t have any for my equipment and I have been burnt before when we were once broken in to and our bikes stolen. Our bikes were around 10 years old and my wife and I didn’t have receipts and we had hell of a fight with our household insurers.

Anyway, I digress, here is the email I sent to photoguard:

Hi. I have a question regarding your claims. I'm looking for insurance for my camera equipment, but I’m very cautious about buying insurance as I’ve been burnt before. I was looking in depth at your policy and claims and my big question is: On your claims form, you say that you must provide receipts and/or bank statements for each item stolen, but how does this work if the item is like 4 years old and you no longer have the receipt? I've been pleased with the quote and I’m starting to get into more things like street photography and landscape so really want to get some insurance, but I’m not willing to get burnt if something happens. Thanks

and this was the reply I received:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email.

If you are unable to provide us with bank statements or receipts, you can take a dated photograph of the item showing the make and model, and with you in the photo as proof of ownership.

We also accept packaging and proof of previous insurance for the item.

I hope this clarifies.

If you have any other questions or queries please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards

Customer Service
JLT | Online - virtual insurance solutions

I have sent a CD off with images of the camera equipment, plus with me and the item and the item with the box in the picture too.
 
Beware of Photoguard people! We have been using them for 1.5 years and they just cancelled our account without warning because apparently our third claim was one too many and that's enough for them to chuck you. I wish they had been clearer about this and informed us properly about our cancellation instead of us finding out by chance. We were reimbursed for all 3 claims made over our insurer period none of which were over £600 and one of which was for only £120 which we would not have claimed for had we known we were only allowed 3 claims. The excess is £50. Due to the final claim being so little I called them to confirm that it would not effect our premium. They told me it would not and cancelled our policy months later due to the 3rd claim.

The only way we found out was through automatic emails offering us a 20% discount to join back up with them. So unprofessional and cold! I am in talks with management now to try and rectify the problem. I'll keep you posted.

They have left me feeling cheated and very dissatisfied. So please read the small print, choose your insurers wisely, and whatever you do don't trust Photoguard!

Regards,


Aaron
 
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