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Post by jindivik on Mar 12, 2022 11:54:52 GMT
I am asking for advice about the best way to cover my archive (books, photos, magazine articles and cuttings) under household contents insurance policies - for instance the wording so that insurance companies will understand what I have and particularly as it will be in an off-site commercial storage facility.
Books (and to an extent photos) can have a replacement value attached to them but what about the 200+ lever-arch folders of articles and cuttings?
I am sure many members will have an archive of some sort and I am looking for their experience of finding appropriate insurance cover.
Alan Southcombe (21601)
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Post by geoffnegus on Mar 13, 2022 12:52:09 GMT
Alan
I've never heard of anybody insuring a collection such as yours under a household contents policy. I suspect that firms would regard the risk as unviable.
My memory may be faulty, but I seem to recollect the late Mike Coulson, who worked in the insurance industry and advised the A-B Board on such matters, saying that the only viable insurance was to create digital backups.
You might ask some professional archivists for their advice.
Geoffrey Negus
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Post by mpf on Mar 13, 2022 15:49:25 GMT
One has to bear in mind that insurance is basically about money - and if you have a claim to make the insurers will essentially pay you what the loss would cost to replace.
Always a problem with personal irreplaceable material. It might be possible to agree with an insurer a value based on what it could be sold for. But one must question how much one could actually sell 200+ lever arch files.
Malcolm Fillmore
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Post by geoffnegus on Mar 13, 2022 19:10:21 GMT
Alan
Giving your question further thought, I must ask whether you have given serious consideration to scanning your archive.
Scanning saves space. It is the arch-enemy of space-consuming lever-arch files.
If you then put your scans through an Optical Recognition program, you should then be able, amazingly quickly, to find even single words from within that mountain of paper.
Goodbye commercial storage facilities!
Of course, I very much hope that you will be amongst us for many, many years to come.
But think about the inevitable. What will happen to all those lever-arch files when you eventually go to the hangar in the sky?
With a heavy heart, I have to tell you that the chances of them being physically preserved are virtually zero.
SCAN! SCAN!
If you or any other inmates of this list have questions or advice, I would be delighted to chip in.
Geoff
(A-B Archives Cttee, chief scanner)
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Post by andym on Mar 14, 2022 0:56:26 GMT
I still can't see the point in insuring 200+ lever-arch files. If they go up in smoke, they would be impossible to replace, unless you have already copied them.
All you would be getting is "compensation" for the loss, but why spend money to achieve this?
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Post by jindivik on Mar 14, 2022 11:00:36 GMT
Thank you to Geoff, Malcolm and Andy for your thoughts - there are some different angles there I need to think about while I'm away on holiday this week!!.
Alan.
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