This is just a hopefully helpful post to those of you with valuable collections. I know there are many of you that don't like me on this board, but there are many that do, and this is useful information.

A couple months ago I had a home burglary. The thieves, luckily, weren't after casino chips, but did take one small safe that wasn't bolted to the floor. In the safe were quite a few really nice pieces of my collection, valued at close to $20,000+. When I initially turned my claim into State Farm Insurance, they were going to deny the part of the claim for the casino chips, saying they fell into the CASH part of the policy subject to limitations of only $1000. I contacted my attorney, and he read the policy. The policy, and he says most policies do, cover FAIR market value of any COLLECTIBLE at the time of loss, who's age, or history greatly attibutes to its value!! My lawyer submitted to State Farm an example: If you take a 1960 Jerry's Nugget $5 chip and a 1960 Dune's $5 chip there is a LARGE difference in price!! WHY--because the Dune's $5 chip's history greaty adds to its value, where as noone really cares about the Jerry's Nugget $5 since it was not famous! Also a 1960 Dune's and a 1988 Dunes vary greatly in value, mostly due to their age. He also submitted to the adjuster that a chip was nothing but a collectible or piece of memorbilia after a casino was closed or had changed their chips, making them obsolete. With this information in hand the adjuster had no choice but to pay the claim at FAIR market value. He went as far to reference the Chip Rack guides and even looked at ebay and jackpot. It was agreed upon that 70% of low book was FAIR value and the claim was paid. This is just to let chippers know a few details:

CURRENT CHIPS, even high dollar Cinco De Mayo Hard Rock chips that CAN be cashed in, ARE NOT covered by insurance and considered cash since they have a cash value.

Make sure to photograph, scan or video tape EVERY chip for proof of ownership. I had an old chip rack guide that I had highlighted all the chips I owned. This came in very handy since I didn't have scans of all the missing chips. They took the highlighted price guide as proof on inventory and paid on it.

You DO NOT need a rider policy UNLESS your policy has a specific limitation on collectibles. Baseball Cards and many other collectibles had a limit specifically listed, but chips did not (but they may soon)!!

Anyway, I hope this helps some of you. Take an inventory, even if they are stolen out of your car at a show or something like that, they ARE covered, no matter what the insurance company tries to tell you at first.
Regards,
DEAN