Over the years, I have been a steadfast advocate of protecting your musical equipment investment. I have reviewed several items on this site specific to safeguarding guitars and other gear from the rigors of the road as well as minimizing the risk of blown electronics due to power surges and overloads. One area I have never touched on however is insurance policies that cover your instruments on the road, and in your studio.
About a year ago my wife and I cataloged all of the equipment I had in my studio and gear testing facility. I then took the list and figured out how much it would cost to replace all of these items in the unfortunate event such as a fire or flood. The final number was mind boggling to say the least. Being that my studio is home based, I always thought my homeowners insurance would cover me adequately, but the truth of the matter was simply that using my entire policy for only my studio would not even scratch the surface of what would need to be replaced.
With this new found knowledge I called my insurance company to find out what I could do. The result was an offer for a separate and very complicated policy to cover just my studio and gear. The special rules that would be a part of this policy would also place an incredible amount of restriction to my studio space. For instance, I would not be allowed to let anyone in my studio even if I was present. Therefore I could not record any other musicians, even for my own projects. In fact I could not even have a few guys over for a jam session.
My wife recently did a search for insurance companies that specialized in policies specific to the entertainment industry. The companies she found have policies for home studios, offsite studios, tours, and regular gigging musicians. Some policies even cover the recordings you do in the studio for other bands in the event that data is lost or compromised. I have contacted all of these insurance companies with a request to do an interview to talk about these policies and get more information for those of you who may be interested. These types of policies are probably not as important to the hobby player with a single guitar and amp, but if you were to inventory your gear and add up replacement value, many would probably be astounded by how much you have spent over the years.
Very few people ever think that anything will happen happen, but the flooding in New Orleans and the more recent flooding in Nashville should be a wake up call to all of us that things beyond our control can happen in an instant and it could end up being quite costly. Gary Allen