Thursday, March 28, 2024

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Photography can be a hobby, an art form, or even a career, as well as of course a way of capturing the memories, people and events that matter for posterity. While everybody now has some form of camera on their mobile phone, their tablet, their computer or other multi purpose gadget, those who are serious about photography usually buy a device that is only intended to be used to take pictures. While the cameras on the average smartphone these days are better in terms of megapixels than a lot of digital cameras that were on the market a few years ago, these devices are not designed purely with photographers in mind, so there are lots of features and controls the keen photographer can only get from a true camera. Also, with a normal camera you can fit all the lenses, filters and other features you need, rather than trying to replicate their effects with post production photo editing.

Cameras and Theft

Whether you use your cameras and camera accessories for work or just for fun, chances are you have invested quite a lot of money in them. Good camera gear, even a simple small camera to carry around with you on holiday, is not cheap, and professional quality gear can cost thousands.

It is unlikely you always keep your cameras in one place either – even if you work out of a studio or mainly use your camera at home, there will be occasions when you will want to take camera gear out with you – whether to photograph some scenery, to film or capture an event like a wedding, or just in case you see something cool you'd like to get a better quality photo of than you could with your phone.

For these reasons, cameras are a high risk item when it comes to personal theft. Personal theft basically refers to crimes like mugging and pick pocketing, which happen when you are out and about and tend to relieve you of small personal items like your wallet, your phone, your computer and, of course, your camera. They are also items that are commonly taken in a burglary situation, because they are high value but easy to carry.

Other Things That Can Go Wrong

As well as being appealing targets for those less scrupulous members of society who like to steal and sell on valuable items, cameras are also quite fragile. With glass lenses and lots of moving parts, as well as (these days) touch screens and all kinds of other electronic tech, there is a lot on the average camera that can break, get scratched or go wrong. If you drop your camera, you may find that it is basically unusable afterwards, and equally, if it gets too wet, this can permanently break it. While some people invest in 'tough' cameras designed for use in extreme conditions, the average camera simply can't withstand a lot of shock or water damage.

If you rely on your camera for work or are simply very fond of it and wouldn't like to be in a position where you couldn't use it, it is therefore really wise to buy an insurance policy to protect it, and any expensive or hard to replace accessories you have for it.

How to Insure a Camera

You may believe that your camera and equipment are adequately covered by your home insurance. However, in many cases home insurance can be found lacking when it comes to portable gadgets. Home contents insurance policies are an old form of insurance based on risk models designed at a time when people took very few of their valuables out of the home (perhaps just some jewellery), and most of the expensive things they owned stayed in the house. They were created to help people insure the things they owned against floods, fires and burglaries, rather than common petty theft, which is a lot more common. These days, of course, we carry a lot of our most expensive items around with us, and they are therefore at greater risk of being stolen or broken. Insurers therefore have to limit the scenarios in which they will pay out for items like these, and how much they will pay, otherwise the risk for them would increase and they would have to put up the price of policies across the board.

For this reason, you are going to get far more peace of mind (which is of course what insurance is all about) if you buy a policy specifically for your camera equipment. These are surprisingly easy to find, with specialist insurers offering policies like ProtectYourBubble.com camera insurance that are made especially for photographers like you.

About the Author

Laura Ginn is a hobby photographer and even though her equipment is not top of the range, she makes sure it is insured against theft and accidental damage.  This leaves her free to worry about more important things.