back up camera

[wlaidlaw]

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Wilson,

 

You are insurance specialist so I better ask.

 

Is this a good deal & is it applicable to you with homes in two countries.

 

I reside in UK only, I have John Lewis content insurance with unspecified valuables insured at home and away, from memory, £20K worth of items (camera kit) plus single item over £5K (M9P). My monthly premium is about £30/month, it went up from £24/month following my claim for damaged ZM 25mm.

 

Hoping mentioning of specific businesses not associated with Leica is not braking any rules.

 

Original question; MP backing up M9P backing up M240 (once I buy it).

 

Mladen,

 

Without seeing industry figures, I could not say whether it was a good deal or not. However it was the best I could find that covered me for 180 days outside the UK each year and was much lower than other quotes I got. This was from Aaduki UK.

 

Having worked in the industry for 40 years, admittedly mostly in big stuff like major industry, oil tankers and jumbo jets, I find the habit of jacking your premium up as soon as you have any claim, is most reprehensible. What is the purpose of insurance but to pay claims and what did the insurers think you bought it for? I used to lecture many years ago to insurance executives and I always used to ask them, why did they think that people who were 100% honest for all their lives, would cheat on an insurance claim? The answer is that they never expect an insurance company to be straight and honest with them, so why should they be honest in return. In other words, cheating begets cheating and the insurers started it.

 

I have had to use my technical knowledge and occasionally name drop to get a genuine personal claim settled, which is wrong. I had a burglary in France and the French Insurance Company were being very difficult. Luckily before I retired, I had insured the group chairman’s sailing yacht as the commercial vessel it used to be, as a favour, so I was able to phone him up and the whole thing got settled in days.

 

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

I don't take my Leica outfit on holidays. I use the 12-50mm on a Panasonic G5 as a travel camera and thought it an improvement on the 14-42mm. I know my f2 Summicron is a much sharper lens on the M4/3 outfit but so it should be. Is there a better zoom that the 12-50mm?

Thanks for your help.

Philip

 

There is a much better but much bigger and heavier zoom from Olympus the 12-40 f2.8 but for a Panasonic it has no image stabilisation as that is in body on the Pen cameras. This is only just becoming available and I am waiting to rent one from the Olympus 4.3rd rental people in the UK, before I buy. I have yet to see a review of its performance. I am not sure that it will buy, as the very low weight of the 12-50 is a big plus. If I need quality, I can always stick an M lens or Zeiss on with my Metabones M to MFT adapter. The focus peaking of the EP-5 makes focusing much easier on an MF lens, although I wish it was not only black or white and would offer either the red of the M240 or the yellow of the NEX-7. I went the Pen route rather than mirrorless Panasonic because I wanted image stabilisation for using longer Leica lenses, e.g. the 80-200 Vario Elmar-R.

 

Wilson

[Jeff S]

...that is close to £20,000 worth of kit. The cheapest decent world-wide cover I have found is about £600 per annum.

 

Too bad you can't insure through a US company like AIG or Chubb, under their premium plans. My cost is roughly half of your cheapest quote, and my coverage is among the very best available. But I guess things even out at times; my Leica gear cost is often higher than in Europe.

 

Jeff