I never thought it would happen to me, but a clogged drain in our washing machine on the main level caused our clothes washer to run all night and overflow for 6 hours as I slept. I woke up to the sound of rain drops in our house as the main level was flooded and it all was basically raining in the basement.
Parts of my collection got drenched. I have 58 complete sets with a lot of vintage back to 1957 - some in binders, some in boxes. Some complete sets were completely destroyed and others had partial damage to the cards on the ends. I took the cards out of the wet boxes to help them dry out. Some of the boxes were wet on the outside, but still kind of dry on the inside so I think a few can be saved.
Does anyone have experience with insurance claims on cards? Am I going to have to sit with the adjuster and go through 100k cards and show him which ones are damaged with water stains/warped, etc.? I'm not sure how much they'll take my word on things and how much they'll need to see in person.
Like I said, I'm salvaging what I can but I'm not even sure if the humidity will warp them all. It would almost be easier to just 'junk' the complete sets that are mostly damaged and tell the adjuster I need to replace the whole thing. A lot of them will be easy - sets from the 80's to current, but I'm not sure about all my vintage sets. This is a debacle and I almost can't bear to look through the cards to see the damage.
I'd appreciate any advice on salvaging the cards and handling the insurance claim. I'm not even sure if they'll reimburse replacement value if I need to buy replacement sets for the ones that are ruined. I guess I'll be figuring it out in the next few days. Ugh... what a mess.
Eric
Parts of my collection got drenched. I have 58 complete sets with a lot of vintage back to 1957 - some in binders, some in boxes. Some complete sets were completely destroyed and others had partial damage to the cards on the ends. I took the cards out of the wet boxes to help them dry out. Some of the boxes were wet on the outside, but still kind of dry on the inside so I think a few can be saved.
Does anyone have experience with insurance claims on cards? Am I going to have to sit with the adjuster and go through 100k cards and show him which ones are damaged with water stains/warped, etc.? I'm not sure how much they'll take my word on things and how much they'll need to see in person.
Like I said, I'm salvaging what I can but I'm not even sure if the humidity will warp them all. It would almost be easier to just 'junk' the complete sets that are mostly damaged and tell the adjuster I need to replace the whole thing. A lot of them will be easy - sets from the 80's to current, but I'm not sure about all my vintage sets. This is a debacle and I almost can't bear to look through the cards to see the damage.
I'd appreciate any advice on salvaging the cards and handling the insurance claim. I'm not even sure if they'll reimburse replacement value if I need to buy replacement sets for the ones that are ruined. I guess I'll be figuring it out in the next few days. Ugh... what a mess.
Eric
Last edited: