Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Is separate piano insurance really necessary?

Hello!

This is my first post, I have been lurking here for a few weeks while contemplating a new piano purchase. And before that, I was a lurker several years back when we bought our other piano. :-) I realize there has been a recent thread on insurance, and I apologize if I should’ve just tacked on to that thread.

We bought a grand piano (Kawai GX2) recently, and we are trying to figure out if we should insure it separately from our Personal Property coverage under our Homeowner’s insurance. I’ve traded some emails with our insurance agent and currently our piano is covered to some extent: “Without insuring it separately, it would be covered for the normal perils on your policy--fire, water, wind, theft, vandalism, etc.”. She went on to say the only thing she could think of that wouldn’t be covered is if someone spilled something in the piano.

My question is - is separate insurance truly necessary? Has anyone elected *not* to schedule their piano separately? The quote for scheduling our piano is about $250 annually, and we are trying to decide if we should move ahead with this.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and wisdom!

That sounds very expensive to me. My experience is about $100/25k per year.

It is like insuring anything else. Are you comfortable with the risk?

Welcome to PW. Doesn't your house+contents insurance already cover it?

Talk to your insurance agent.

Home owners insurance typically does not cover expensive hobby items.

Buy a $15K fixer upper motorcycle not covered under home owners insurance.

Your $10K diamond ring, not covered.

Same for pianos, even if it is covered you will get a fraction of what it is worth.

If you want to insure it, most likely you need a separate rider.

Sounds like your insurance is like mine, the piano is covered under your contents coverage. You don't need a separate rider because no one is going to steal it

I'd only consider getting separate coverage if my policy didn't cover it for its full value.

I can’t see how there can be a generalization: my homeowners insurance does not need a rider, and my piano is covered at replacements value. Talk to your agent

I am not talking about theft.

What if there is a fire or a main pipe bursts on the second level on your home?

A person that trips with a bottle of wine that falls on your plate.

A cat with diarrhea taking a nap on your keys.

A hail storm that breaks a window that allows a family of raccoons to set up shop under your strings.

That is what piano insurance is for.

Insurance companies will almost always try to weasel out of paying claims. Is piano insurance really necessary? If you have an expensive high performance piano in your home, then yes. You might consider separate insurance.

If have an old Yamaha U1 (for example), maybe not.

Obviously, get the terms and maximum recovery amounts IN WRITING.

I've chosen not to insure mine separately. Our policy covers the piano for replacement value up to the full coverage limit of our home's personal contents coverage. Has the agent provided a list of what additional coverage the $250 annual cost provides that you don't already have?

Mark you might want to check what actually is covered. Insurance companies are famous for collecting premiums, when it comes to paying out get ready to deal with the legal team.

Where I live we have earthquakes, a piano insurance is a no-brainer for me.

Do you live near where Tornadoes touch down? Is your piano insured from tornado related damage?

I did ask our agent first, she explained that pianos are different than portable musical instruments. If I needed to take it outside the house I'd need separate coverage. I also read my policy, and it's clear what's limited under personal property, things like artwork, jewelry, firearms, etc. Tornadoes are covered, the exclusions are things like asteroids, civil unrest, etc. Flooding is an issue around here because it's so flat, and that is one place insurance policies have some really crazy loopholes. Fortunately my piano is on the second floor and it's about 150' downhill toward Chicago, so if it gets that deep there will be 8 million people shopping for scuba tanks.

Hi all,

IMHO, understanding of what a fine musical instrument is, how it can sustain damage, how it is valued, etc. is all a part of being able to properly insure musical instruments. If a company doesn't understand this, they can make a mistake in their ratings, lose money, then pull out of the business, or worse yet, deny or underserve claims.

My company does a very good amount of insurance work and for about 20 years I have recommended Heritage Insurance in Trevose, Pa. To be clear I have no affiliation at all with the company, but I have been on the end of helping their clients. They are easy to deal with and they understand fine musical instruments. For years this part of their company was headed up by Joan Gallo. I believe she may be retired.

Anyway, I have met great musicians with a variety of fine instruments across the USA that use them.

They may not be the cheapest, but they are also not the most expensive, and I can personally attest that when the rubber has hit the road in the past, they have been good for their clients.

Another very good insurer of fine musical instruments is Chubb.

My 2 cents,

Ours are covered under our normal property insurance policy at replacement value. We do have a high deductible to keep insurance costs down. The primary risk to the piano is total loss in a fire, along with a lot of the house. We will self insure for spills, pets, theft and other low risk things.

Hi All,

Thanks for your replies. (And Tony, thanks for the welcome - I have been reading your threads with interest and I *sincerely* hope you find a wonderful piano that you are thrilled with very soon.)

To clarify a couple of things, yes we have full replacement coverage on our property insurance - I agree that is definitely the way to go. We also already have two cellos and a lever harp insured separately through the same insurance company, since as MarkL points out - these instruments are moved around quite a bit (at least they were pre-COVID) and could be damaged much more easily. I kind of assumed we would just add the piano as well even though it’s obviously not moved around. But after communicating with our agent (who almost majored in piano performance in college and probably has a decent piano at home), she gave me the impression that we were already adequately covered. She was not pushing me to buy additional piano insurance.

But as Learux points out, there could an odd situation where the piano isn’t covered and -- do I want to take a risk on that small chance? Also Learux, you are right the quote is high. The salesperson at the piano store suggested that we insure the piano at full MSRP, and the $250/year is for 42k. Of course we paid nowhere near that, so if we decided to insure based on the sales price that is $150/year.

Also Rich, thank you for your professional opinion as well as your recommendations for upstanding insurance companies.

I think my next step is to take a look at our insurance documents to confirm what exactly are the “normal perils” covered before making a decision. Thanks again all for sharing your opinions, they are very helpful!

I'm glad this subject came up. I called my insurance today and they say my piano is covered but it's currently on a cash value policy where the piano would depreciate over a 25 year life. So that'd be quite the disaster if something happened to it after 10 or 15 years when it was in the prime of it's life but the insurance deemed it had very low value. So i'll switch to replacement value or get a dedicated policy soon, whichever is cheaper.

I should be clearer - this branch of Heritage Insurance does nothing but insure high end musical instruments and takes the unusual value of these instruments into account.

I am glad the question was helpful to you and you checked your current insurance coverage. (If I am remembering your thread correctly, your piano is gorgeous and must sound amazing, congrats)! As for our new piano, after reading our policy documents and thinking it over, we decided to go ahead and attach the piano separately to our personal property insurance. The additional premium isn't that much, and we decided it's worth it for the piano to be covered no matter what.

This thread is absolutely amazing as I am struggling with my insurance company on insuring a higher end piano. While they say they insure musical instruments, they definitely don't understand the world of high end instruments. Now hearing about cash value and depreciation ... yikes!! So many good comments and questions have given me more to think about.

Huge thanks to @RichGalassini for your insight and experience!

From what I understand ...
When it comes to homeowners, you really need to contact your insurance company to learn what and how things are covered. Everyone has different preferences when it comes to things like "full replacement coverage." If your musical instrument is of high value, the dollar amount you're entitled to in a total loss quickly goes to your instrument and not much else might be left that is covered. Most times there is an associated deductible.

Valuable Personal Property is another option (and is what I was trying to do). This specifically itemizes anything of high value. In my case, there is not a deductible. That said, each company requires different documentation for VPP policies. I find they understand traditional items (like jewelry) quite well but not so great with specific items. Thus why there are companies that specialize in high end and classic automobiles.

Also asking if your instrument is covered in case of natural disaster, accidental breakage, etc. are all very important. While insurance companies happily accept your premium payments, they are loophole central when it comes to paying out claims.

For me, the amount of time and effort (6+ hours on the phone) trying to get my insurance company to understand insuring my piano left me with a very uneasy feeling ... even if they did insure it, if I had a claim, not so confident things would go smoothly. This obviously isn't their ... forte

@Learux
Thanks for injecting some much needed humor into what is traditionally a very frustrating topic. This gave me a great laugh!