Reptile & Amphibian Forums

does anyone here have insurance on their collections and if so how did you go about it,,,,,,how do you get accurate values should god forbid you had a fire and or a theft........thank you

wow over 60 posts since i asked this question and not ONE reply......strange

Sorry, I don't know about that or I would post an answer.

depending on how you are set up... if you are just someone in a house.. you will have a harder time at insuring your snakes... esp. if you own your home...
there are many MANY ins. companies out there that will drop your ass so fast if they find out you have snakes! Many of them are the big companies too...

When we bought our house, we had to delay closing until we could find an ins. that would cover us having snakes in the house- we made the mistake of asking if we could insure our snakes under our homeowners policy and were many times told we couldn't have ins. thru that company b/c of the snakes... heard the same thing about having german shepherds.... be wary of who you tell what!

I finally ended up going to a friend of a friend of a brother of a cousin of a whatever-- who does insurance-- i can give you the company privatly if you'd like... anyway--- he said that I couldn't have the animals covered as part of the house- BUT-- when we got to the part of covering personal property-- my couch, my flat screen tv, computers, jewelry, etc etc etc --- I used the snakes as 'personal property' too.... we just pay for enough ins coverage that if my house were to burn down, I would get enough for my house and stuff to replace my snakes.... its hard to put a price tag on some of the adult snakes though... just like the price of albinos... there are still a few of those 10k albinos out there from 20 years ago-- BUT they aren't *worth* that now.... so it's a little complicated- but I went off current market prices for the snakes- what it would take me to replace a 15 foot tiger retic, a huge normal female ball, a tame emerald tree boa... etc...

The only hang up I have is if i get robbed--- if someone comes in and steals all my snakes- i'm SOL b/c they aren't part of my homeowners policy that way.... the only way I would get them replaced is if I had a total loss of my home.... (which I pray never happens) ...

Now, add to this that I have recently become a fire/robbery freak and we have a security system and when the guys came to install it thought we were nuts.... we have 9 smoke detectors-- 3 in the garage that was converted to suit the snakes, 3 downstairs with the racks of snakes (and flexwatt that i dont trust) and the other 3 upstairs- one in kitchen, living room and the end of the hall by the bedroom....
We also have the robbery security stuff on the windows and ALL doors... 24 hour monitoring, etc--- ran us about 700$ to have it installed and $15 a month for monitoring-- makes me feel much better when i leave the house every morning.... well worth the investment- use your tax return...

And another note--- I have been told that if i were running a buisness of some kind, like a petstore or a professional breeder, I could get coverage that way-- I have my own issues with that though-- I'm not allowed to run a buis out of my home in the town I live in- i'd have to pay for a seperate facility... which brings up more safety/robbery concerns so its not worth it to me... esp since i'm not selling babies or anything like that right now....

Let me know if i can help you anymore... hope this has helped a little ...

~Beth
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