Replacement Value
Nov 10th, 2006 by mark
Many of you, who have home owners or renters insurance, may have a “replacement value” clause. The common misconception is that when your insured widget, gewgaw, or family heirloom is lost, damaged, or stolen you’ll get enough money to go get yourself a new one. This is a nice misconception, but a misconception nonetheless.
Reality is, once you successfully jump through all the claim process hoops, all you get is a check for the current depreciated value of your trinket, bauble, or antique. Then you have a year to replace the missing, destroyed, or pilfered item. Keeping the receipts then allows you to jump through new hoops to get a second check, for the difference between the first check and the purchase price of the replacement.
All of this is fine and dandy, unless the insurance adjuster assigned current value is less than the deductible on your account. In which case you get zilch. In my case the stolen camera is no longer state of the art, it’s not even county of the art any more. I highly doubt that the depreciated value is going to be anywhere near my deductible amount.
