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[Music] hey guys it's scott with scotty b cards in this episode i have an interview with robert broadwater from collectibles insurance services and me and robert discuss the advantages of actually getting insurance for your sports cards and other collectibles uh collectibles insurance services does everything from collecting sports cards other autographed memorabilia games memorabilia comics a bunch of other stuff and in this interview he can explain why it's an advantage for you as a collector uh one thing i wanted to say before the video starts is please like and subscribe it helps the channel grow and will help me continue to release these videos and be able to have content that is enjoyable for everybody so thanks guys and have a great day and enjoy the interview all right rob so start things off out of curiosity did you ever collect cards as a kid i did i did not ever collect cards as a kid no um just yeah just just wasn't my thing the only collecting i ever did i did collect the model airplanes as a little i was gonna say because you're from the east coast aren't you yes from a group born and raised in new jersey so i'd be in new jersey and did not collect cards and you're probably in the 90s i'm assuming pretty surprising yeah yeah no just never never got into i mean i even played baseball and um you know other sports but just never got into the card collecting side awesome well cool well first thing is i'd like to have you introduce yourself who you are kind of where you work at and what you do sure so i'm a bob broadwooder i'm the director at collectibles and insurance services been with the organization about eight years now and um you know it's been been been a great company to be a part of get to meet a lot of interesting folks and um you know talk about uh some pretty cool things that's great and thanks for helping on bob i just wanted to help other collectors like myself who have their collections growing to know that there's even a service that's available for them uh as our collections get more valuable there's all these threats of either theft or loss in the mail or even just fire damage or other damage to the home so i kind of wanted to have people know what's available so i guess my first question is you said your director collectable insurance services um but what does the company as a whole do like what do they actually cover in regards to collectibles sure so our company uh the group company i'm a part of is called global indemnity group we're a specialty property and casualty insurance company we have several different business divisions um our largest one is small business our primary focus is specialty commercial insurance by that i mean companies as small businesses that that struggle to get your traditional types of insurance types of businesses that have unique risk things like dry cleaners restaurants bars more high risk activities that require specialized underwriting our company we don't do personal auto insurance or homeowners homeowners insurance there's plenty of carriers out there uh we're inside the market that does specialize underwriting so things like collectibles that just take a different look that fall outside of the purview of the large companies um we're really an underwriting company and that involves um you know all types of uh unique types of property which collectibles um falls under definitely awesome so i guess if let's say i had an account with you which i do well let's say for somebody who does it what do you and do you not cover for collectibles like what would be covered in your insurance so this um the product we have right now fills a gap left in homeowners products homeowners insurance will cover personal property at what's called actual cash value um you know that means you purchase some new furniture several years from now it's destroyed water fire what have you theft though that that those that personal property will be depreciated x number of years since you acquired it um beyond that there's several things that homeowners simply won't cover um things that are unique uh or higher value things like art collectibles um firearms there's jewelry unless you schedule it so there's all kinds of things that that homeowners simply won't cover or if they do cover they depreciate it versus what you what it would cost to replace it or the market value of it so what we do is we designed a stand-alone insurance product um it's it's it's a what's called a monoline property insurance product and that will ensure any items you have to the market value so it's filling that gap so that you know you don't have to go through your homeowners um because they won't they simply won't cover it we're covering essentially the same types of losses that a homeowner's policy would cover for your other items things like fire water damage theft or the main ones to your home beyond that we also cover shipping and what's called transit exposures so if you sell something or you acquire something that item is insured should it get lost in the mail damaged on its way to you you know to or from um or several of our collectors they attend shows um they travel with their collection for whatever the case may be should damage occur while in route somewhere um most commonly theft um we do cover we do cover that loss as well so it doesn't have to be in your home to be covered it is covered whenever it is with you outside the home or or in the middle of a shipment that's fantastic because that's i know a lot of people i know we've talked about this before but just for the audience i know a lot of people who've sent mail this last month and neither was delivered to the wrong place they can't find the item or it was straight up lost or damaged and they're out the entire amount they sold it for you know the buyer will always be on ebay but the seller's screwed so yesterday i sold four thousand dollar card that's one of my friends sold a four thousand dollar card and it was delivered to the wrong and they can't recover we just give you a call show you the tracking and communication and we'd have a claim filed and go from there and get the money back or how would it work that's correct yes so we do ask for anything being shipped that you require signature that helps us establish the trail and it also protects the customer for someone saying i i if they sign for it they can't say they didn't get it so yes um right now the mail is is very unreliable so they send something out it's tracked it just gets lost um delivered the incorrect place or or damaged uh due to extended time taking to get there if the customer is uh either the sender or the buyer depending on who as long as the customer has a uh receipt or record of that transaction um if it's the buyer and they already paid for it they're telling us that they're saying hey i paid this for it i never received it that's a claim or also on the seller side if the seller is our customer um they same thing i processed this you can see it it was it was lost via the tracking and here's the claim for it um we know we've gotten pretty uh we're pretty widespread in terms of where we cover um where our customers are all over the country so we've run into scenarios where the the seller and the customer actually both are insurance so whoever is out that's the individual will make whole and make sure they recover the the lost lost money that's awesome so speaking of how many people you cover is it a pretty big audience like do you know how many collectors off the top of your head sports card people actually have uh accounts with you guys yeah we're we're in the in the 20 thousands range um we this company started out it's been around since the mid 1960s it started out with a stamp collector um stamp stamp collectors and stamp dealers that that's not even covered by your home owners not even at cash value um so there was a gap there and stamps were a very popular collectible item back then it's specialized primarily in uh stamps coins and art um since then we've evolved we still of course insure those things but since then the growth segments we're seeing are sports collectors not just cars all types of memorabilia um comic books are very fast growing segment and all the related paraphernalia uh much of that is thanks to the the marvel movies and and everything else just the the original marvel and dc comics have just exploded in value um another segment that is always growing we do also do uh firearm collections uh which is a different audience than the other ones but also uh an audience that that has uh there's not many options to ensure those types of things uh military military collections those types of things we basically will ensure any type of collection outside um collector auto there's other companies that do that and that specialize in that they do that well um and we don't at that price we don't do a collectible uh we don't do wine collections um perishables but those are the two most common ones we don't do pretty much anything else if it's a collectible property and we do some pretty unique things it will be we'll consider the insurance for it awesome this is kind of off topic you guys cover video games too and stuff the vintage ones yes yes uh growing segment uh for sure definitely games there's a couple companies that do that well um the video game consoles some of the the rarer ones go for quite a bit on ebay especially if they're still working order we cover historical the original apple computer things like that that are that are quite a bit we we extend coverage to well that's awesome so we talked a little bit about how if you file the claim you take it off of the market value how do you value those cards is it just like often sold ebay listings or how would you do that sure so there's several resources we use um you know we have uh subscriptions with psa beckett we do online research with different auction houses sports being as common as they are are fairly easier to value so we go to a couple different resources based on the item you you lost um and then and come up with a value a range of value you know that that we think it's worth if the customer happens to have a record of that value and if it's close to what we're coming to then then we'll settle for what the customer has um if it's completely different not common but if it is completely different than the value we're seeking we'll just ask we'll go back to the customer say can you substantiate that can you show how what would you be be uh what would it take to replace that item today on the market and if you're able to find a similar card going on auction for for the price you believe is worth then then that's what we uh that's what we settle for awesome so you guys sound like you're really easy to work with in comparison to other homeowners like policies and stuff yeah we because everything's so unique and um you know that the values are fluctuating it's very different homeowners and auto are very there's just mounds of data they aggregate the data on their site and they'll tell you what things are worth okay with these with rare items it's it's the values are moving targets um sometimes up and sometimes down um and it's just establishing you know looking at what are people paying for those items today so it's a very different type of claim settlement process than say you know my roof was damaged i need it replaced totally okay awesome i have a couple more questions i don't take too much of your time but i appreciate it um i guess my next one is how many like what's the biggest claim you've actually ever given out for a sports card out of curiosity i don't think we even talked about that prior but if you know off the top of your head sure i can't recall the biggest claim we ever we ever said but i can tell you we ensure individual cards that are up to maybe just past a million for an individual card cool um there's a couple on the books that we have um that that is is the current value um so while we have had a few large losses um thankfully because the care people have with these items um that's that our experience has been good because we recognize people their passion of these items is you know is more so than say their home or their car they'll do everything they can to get these items out of harm's way because they don't want to check from us they want to preserve the item some pretty big items that's one nice thing i doubt there's much fraud in regards to this market simply because they'd rather have the item than the money a lot of these that's correct yeah that hasn't been our experience and i get that question frequently how much fraud do you see uh thankfully knock on wood not much yeah most people are pretty pretty honest then and again it's pretty easy to track down if that was the case totally and i was even thinking my own collection so i i opened an account with you guys two years ago and time my collection was like five thousand dollars and then the last two years it's gone much much much higher and this next year i have to raise it another you know 30 40 000 just because the cards have appreciated so much with all the new collectors coming in yes but it gives a lot of peace of mind knowing that if i were to lose everything i would be covered because that is gut wrenching because of the cash value but because of the collectible sentiment as well so i think you guys do an awesome job and it sounds like you're super customer oriented which is fantastic for this type of market we really are again many of our customers they have interesting stories to tell our sales team is focused on just understanding how you got into collecting and you know how they can help and also helps we're talking about something people enjoy talking about yeah and we have a couple uh collectors themselves who are our sales agents and they're just they just enjoy talking to collectors even if it's something different it's that passion that that they enjoyed discussing awesome and so i guess as a collector what what would you guys prefer as a company do you prefer us to have inventory lists of everything so we can actually have a detailed record of it all like what do we need to do on our side once we open an account with you sure the more at the end of the day the more information the better many of our our collectors they do have a schedule of items we don't require you to put anything on your schedule of items unless that individual item is twenty five thousand dollars or greater value okay um that being said the more records the better uh many many collectors catalog their items um differently there's some tools out there that allow you to do that um if you have any type of catalog even if it's in a spreadsheet um that helps immensely yeah um the most common that could be a lot of work some people have a lot a lot just a lot of stuff um pictures also help we'll uh they'll send in some pictures of items they own we'll put those pictures in your file and then obviously if there should be a loss it is simply a matter of establishing what that item was okay you said you had it it's on your list and or here's a picture of it and or here's a receipt if you happen to have that less likely but possible um so all those things together the more information the better it greatly expedites the the claims settlement process awesome okay wise i have a few more questions for you my next one is could give us like an idea of rates i know rates can be depending on the stake maybe depending on how big the collection is we can give us an idea of like a ten thousand and twenty thousand fifty thousand and a hundred thousand dollar collections absolutely just give me one moment here i was actually just pulling that up awesome thank you you wanna see give an accurate range here this will be good for me too so i can get my new quote for the year yep so so before i mention race real quick i did want to mention we do have two different products one product is geared towards a collector the other is geared towards the dealer and some of the unique risks that they have um obviously the vast majority of our insurance customers are collectors but we do have a dealer product the dealer rates are more than what i'm about to quote um because they have there's just more stuff going on there higher transactional volume so that the the dealer pro product costs a little more but for your typical collector our insurance products start at fifty dollars a year that fifty dollars a year would get you about seven or eight thousand dollars worth of coverage um you know to give some benchmark numbers here if you had a twenty thousand dollar collection that that cost would be about a hundred and twenty five dollars a year um roughly that again there's state taxes and fees that but you know plus or minus 10 or 15 bucks that's about what it is and then as you go into the larger value say a 50 000 collection you're you're up anywhere between 260 and 300 dollars um i'll give just one more benchmark here if you're at um you know 100 000 uh in value you're you're talking about 750 bucks a year which when you think about a hundred thousand dollars worth of coverage you know for 750 a year you're not talking a lot of money compared to what you spent to uh to acquire the collection that size less than one percent of the value so yeah that's awesome yeah yeah so how about dealer rates and how would you categorize like who let's say i sell a bunch of cards on ebay but all the cards i sell go to fund the hobby because i sold a higher volume but i'm not actually profiting am i considered a dealer or a collector at that point like where's the line on determining what's what sure the the way to think about if you're actively if it's your business and you're actively advertising advertising items for sale um you know there's always going to be some incidental trading um you turn in a couple items you you you you trade up basically but if if you have a business that says you know collectablecards.com and people were going on there and you're selling you have a storage facility or or a vault in your house where you keep these things if you're advertising things for sale to the public um that's generally where we draw a line for dealer if i can go in on a site and purchase something from you um beyond just you trading a couple things on ebay but actually go to your site and and got you run a transaction that's what we would consider a dealer so not like instagram or facebook sales but no okay yeah no not not through social media but but really a true business like e-commerce site awesome now that's great to know um it's out of curiosity if there are any dealers watching what percentage higher would those rates be for a dealer sure so they are a bit higher so for example if you have fifty thousand dollars in inventory that that coverage is about nine hundred dollars a month i'm sorry not a month a year about nine hundred dollars a year um a hundred thousand inventory you're talking about 1500 to 1800 so it's a little more than double the reason is the extensive um shipping and transit risk to go along with that totally these these dealers will typically pack up everything they have and drive in a normal year drive through shows throughout the country there's exposure with the movement of the collection whether it's with you or via shipping a regular collector their collection just simply doesn't move that much um but a dealer is constant the inventory is high turnover um high susceptibility to damage also often in storage facilities which adds additional risk and then the high frequency is shipping as you can imagine the majority of our our claims are shipping related oh yeah i can only imagine with usps the way it is nothing to get but i just know they ship so much so often that things get lost sometimes no that's great that's kind of all my questions i have for you i guess one final thing is there anything that else that you want to let my followers know about like your business and your service that we haven't talked about yet sure if you know we're happy to provide a quote for anyone who's interested you can simply google collectibles insurance or we're at collectandsure.com you can go in there and get a quote a couple minutes enter some information there's also a number on there you can call us and one of our sales agents would be happy to to give you a quote we do uh we do attend shows we are active on social media so you can message us through instagram or facebook as well we do monitor those feeds during business business hours we do if it happens this year we do attend the the um national sports collector convention the national each year um i myself personally do attend i was disappointed this year because it would have been in new jersey so that would have been helpful but uh we'll if it happens we will we we uh we do attend that event and um you know we always think it's a great one and bob so i guess my final question is if you had a hundred thousand dollars what sports card or sports cards would you put it into i know you're always good question collectors i want to know what your perspective is is it pokemon is it basketball is it lebron uh it's funny you mentioned lebron uh lebron one's one the lebron car is one of the more uh valuable ones i've seen recently i would say in terms of from an investment perspective um what we've seen the nba ones are are they're all increasing in value but particularly the nba ones yeah they're really increasing in value um the most so if you're looking at it from an investment standpoint and you know those that's probably where i would put it in some nba cards a little brown um because that is just um yeah we've seen a tremendous uptick in that recently funny thing is i collected basketball cards growing up uh in 2003 was my first blaster box was the tops where lebron's rookie card is in yes and i collected basketball religiously until i was about i don't know 16 17 18 and then i decided i liked baseball so i sold all my basketball and now i wish i was holding on to it because it would be worth a lot more so yeah i've seen basketball has gone crazy the last three years compared to any other sport it's just blown up globally it really has and it goes even beyond cars the i mean the memorabilia um you know autographs we do autographs as well it's it's remarkable how many people and with covenant all people spending more time at home people have taken that time to catalog their items work on their home office the collector market has grown um and people have just spent you know spent more time working on their collection um this past year well awesome well bob i appreciate all the time that you've given me and thanks for answering these questions hopefully we can get some people your way and help some other people get insurance so i appreciate your time man absolutely appreciate it scott have a good one you too see you later bye