insurance

Camera insurance guide

Best Photography and Camera Insurance Providers in 2024

Photographers of all skill levels should strongly consider insuring their camera equipment. Whether you are an amateur who cannot afford to replace damaged to stolen gear or a working professional who cannot risk missing out on paying jobs, you should consider protecting your equipment with photography insurance and/or camera insurance.

My Nightmare with USPS Insurance in Shipping a Camera Lens

Photography is amazing, but it does require gear. I recently moved from Canon to Sony, so I had to offload a camera body, lenses, flashes, and triggers. I purchased out-of-pocket insurance on all of my gear packages just to have some peace-of-mind.

I Smashed My Nikon D4 — Here’s What I Learned

My name is Brandie Sunley, and I've been working full-time as a portrait and event photographer for nearly eight years. It's been a massive learning curve getting into this industry, and a lot of things had to be learned the hard way. The following story is one of those hard lessons...

MyGearVault: Input, Organize, and Insure All Your Gear in a Single App

Even though everybody knows how important it is to insure their photography gear, few people ever get organized enough to actually do it. It's just too much of a pain in the rear... well, it was. A new app called MyGearVault makes organizing and insuring your gear so easy, you're out of excuses.

5 Insurance Options for Protecting Your Business and Gear as a Photographer

Whether you are a working professional or a passionate enthusiast, keeping your gear up to date can cost a pretty penny. For this reason, you want to ensure that all of your equipment is well protected against possible damage or theft. With many different organizations offering customized insurance plans for your gear, we are going to take a look at five options to see which may be best suited to your needs.

Cinder Blocks Are a Cheap Way to Give Your Photos Some Fire Protection

Photographer and entrepreneur Gary Fong lost his house to a devastating fire earlier this year, but he didn't lose any of his most valued possessions thanks to precautions that he took. After the experience, he realized that cinder blocks can be used as a cheap way for photographers to gain some fire protection for their data without having to shell out big bucks for commercial solutions.

Video: Croatian High School Grads Push Photog Into Fountain, Destroy $18K in Gear

Reason number 14,526 why you should insure your gear: because a rowdy bunch of over-excited Croatian high school grads might just push you into a freezing fountain and destroy it all.

This might seem like an unlikely scenario (which is why it's so far down the list) but it actually happened earlier this month to one poor Croatian photojournalist, and the incident was caught on camera.

Pro Soccer Player Ponies Up $20,000 After Stomping Camera

Just incase @29_JL @hullcityteam your not sure the ball is the yellow thing.... not the £6k camera (photo al walter) pic.twitter.com/op6zGrUBVX— Richard Heathcote (@rheathcote) December 21, 2013

Professional sports photographers know their equipment is always at risk, but British Getty Images shooter Richard Heathcote was still surprised and more than a bit miffed when his DSLR bit the dust at Saturday's Hull-vs.-West Bromwich Premiere League soccer match.

The Essentials Of The Affordable Care Act For Freelance Photographers

Let's not kid ourselves, when it comes to health insurance, freelance photographers are in an unfortunate situation. Despite working long hours like everyone else and managing their own business, freelance photographers don't get the same group rates that regular employees do. There is no question that buying insurance as an individual is more expensive.

Insurance Company Cites Photography as Most Common Wedding Vendor Issue

According to a recent analysis of its 2012 wedding insurance claims, Travelers Insurance cites the photographer as the most common cause of wedding day mishaps. In its breakdown of the numbers, 24 percent of all wedding issues (the largest chunk) were vendor-related, and 58 percent of all the claims filed under that category involved photos or video.

Photographer’s Images Prove that Bear Was At Fault for Breaking Rented Gear

Depending on your subject matter, it can be a very good idea to take out a damage waiver when renting camera equipment. Wildlife photographer Andrew Kane learned this recently after renting gear from LensRentals for a shoot in Yellowstone. Here's his account of how the borrowed equipment ended up broken:

I recently rented a D4, Wimberly head, and 600VR from you, and the day before yesterday, I had a little bit of an accident. I was photographing a coyote here in Yellowstone and I followed it into the woods about 300yds away from the road. As I am taking pictures of the coyote, I heard twigs breaking behind me, and as I turned around I saw it was a grizzly bear. I picked up the tripod with the D4 and 600 on it and slowly started to back away. The bear got closer and closer as I tried to back up. When the bear got to within 20 yds. of me, I bumped into a brush pile that I could not lift the tripod over, so I had no choice but to leave the gear and continue away from the bear.