SimonTALM
Linford Christie
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- 3,268
- Name
- 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.
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.