Are you a wine lover? There seems to be a growing number of people who want to get insurance to protect their bottles of wine. Those that have been collecting bottles of wine for years may have some really expensive assets to insure against accidental breakage.
You don’t necessarily need to have a wine cellar in order to collect wine. Many wine lovers store their wine in their kitchens, on wine racks of various sizes and styles. This makes a certain kind of sense, when you think about it, because a lot of the people who collect wine are doing so because they intend to drink it.
Some people discover that the wine that they have collected, perhaps over a decade ago, has risen in value. It doesn’t necessarily require a person to have purchased the most expensive wine available, all those years ago, either. Some wine just adds value as it ages. This is when people start thinking about getting insurance on their wine collection. They start having concerns about the bottles accidentally breaking before they can be enjoyed. If the wine has increased in value by a significant amount since it was first purchased, then it would be rather difficult to replace that bottle today.
In the United States, the best way for wine lovers to protect their collection of wine is through their homeowners insurance policy. Part of what a homeowners insurance policy does is provide protection for the property that you own that is located in your home. Obviously, bottles of wine would be considered property, and could be covered by your homeowners insurance. You will need to make sure that the inventory that you gave to your insurance company includes the wine that you are trying to protect.
Check with your insurance company to see if there is any kind of deductible involved. Just like with health insurance, some homeowners policies will come with a deductible that you must pay out of pocket before the insurance will step in and cover your losses. It’s something to keep in mind.
According to Chartis Insurance, an insurance company that covers fine arts, wine, and jewelry for clients who have an extremely high net worth, claims involving breakage of wine bottles only come to about 6% of all the claims involving wine. Data from the years 2000 through 2009 showed that most of the claims involving wine, around 75%, were from temperature control problems, which may or may not have been due to power outages, and also for theft of bottles.
Image by J and R Photography on Flickr