The Auswine Forum

On the weekend some little turd(s) stole about 50 cases (my whole collection but for 3 dozen) of wine from my "security" garage. As you can imagine I am shattered. The police have told me that there is virtually nothing they can do as they have no leads.

I now have the gutwrenching task of drafting an accurate inventory for insurance purposes. Thankfully I had done one about 12 months ago so that has not been too difficult. The value of the wine was noted on my contents policy at $15,000.00 and the 'price when I bought them' estimate I did last night shows that's about right.

However, the thought of replacing my cellar that was primarily made up of wonderful 90 - 98 reds with cases of 99s, 00s and 01s is not something that fills me with joy. Wine is the only thing you don't want a "new for old" clause to relate to.

Which leads me to ask, does anyone know how the insurer will try to value my wine ? ie. will it be :

1. the price when i bought it

2. current market value of the vintages that were stolen (the true replacement cost)

3. retail price of the current vintage of the same labels.

At this stage i plan to have my inventory costed by Langtons, Vintage Cellars, First Estate, 60 Darling St and Kemeneys before i submit it to the insurer.

Does anyone have any other suggestions ?

Thanks guys.

Bummer - sorry to hear such sad news. Realistically, if the insurance policy is for "replacement" value - that effectively means the same wine. Current releases you can replace through any retailer, any back vintages could probably be replaced fairly easily via Langtons - values are known items; it's not like haggling over the value of an irreplaceable 1923 Duesenberg or something.

Who steals wine from a private cellar? Unless its Grange or something valuable, there's a lot of lugging to do for small $.

Was there anything irreplaceable in there? Might be worth letting the auction houses know the full inventory when you are finished, in case they're ofered something similar by a keen "seller"...

sympathetically,
Graeme

Blake,

My guess is that they will try to value the wine with whatever option is the cheapest for them. Check to see if your policy is new for old or just replacement value. I'd go with Langtons for a valuation as they will have a handle on market value for your older wine. Stand firm with whichever insurance company you are with and get the full value of your wine, even if it isn't replaceable.

Why don't you post a list of what was stolen so that we can keep a look out, as difficult as it would be to prove it was yours. It may be useful, as alot of us are auction hounds.

Good luck

Jamie

Sorry to hear about your situation Blake - but I have a question for everyone out there - with your wines like Penfolds Grange, 707, etc that have bottle numbers clearly printed on the labels, have you thought about writing down the numbers so that in the case of theft you could easily quote these numbers to police, auction houses, etc so that they could keep an eye out for the wine just in case someone tried to sell it.
Just a thought!
Cheers
Popov

Blake,

Sincere commiserations, I hope I never have to find out the answers to these questions.

Of course if you had a cellar database such as the free (if you have MS Access) RB Cellar Master it would just be a matter of printing out the list with purchase price and current value shown with totals.

Did they leave anything good in the remaining 3 dozen?

Blake,

Where I used to work in Sydney, we handled the claims for one of the bigger insurance companies.

A lot of the time, people were only claiming for spirits etc. and only some wine. We would recieve the list from the insurers, quote them (at pretty much full retail) and the send them back. Generally this was excepted.

If we didn't have it available, we would either quote the current vintage or one similar.

Hope it helps, and I feel really sorry for you. Apart from all the sh!t that goes through something like this, at least you were insured.

BTW, did they take anything else? If they only hit your wine, I'd begin to question who knew it was there etc. Also might be worth going to a few bottle shops around the traps and make them aware.....

Andrew

Blake
Commisserations.
From an experience I had a while ago I found that if you can:
1) Name every item
2) Be confident in it's true replacement value
3) Offer as much evidence of ownership etc. as possible e.g. receipts/bank statements or even name of merchants you buy from.
4) Be open & co-operative

(basically anything that makes them sure they're not being defrauded)

Then you are in a strong position to challenge anything you believe they've undervalued.

When I was broken into (many years ago now), I remember them offering 20 pounds for an ornamental chess set (worth much more). Luckily I'd popped into a shop that had similar sets the weekend before they came back with the figures & was able to challenge. To their credit they backed down immediately as I was prepared to quote shop & price for a similar set. I think I got 100 pounds which was a fair price. All this with no original receipt.

Even if they take the route (which they are entitled to do) of replacing the items themselves, you'd again be able to challenge if the condition (e.g. bad ullage) was not acceptable.

It's also usual for a certain amount of "under insured" to be acceptable. E.g. if you insured for 15,000 & replacement cost is 16,000 then they'll pay 16,000. They don't have to do this, but it's seen as reasonable. Obviously if the cost came to 30,000 then it would be a different matter.

If you end up still in dispute, then there should be some form of regulatory body to whom you can turn.

Best of luck
Ian

p.s. and I fully echo the comments about sharing the lists with auction houses / brokers / merchants. If they sell off through proper channels then these good people can tip you / the police off. The insurance company will fully support you in this, as it again adds to your credibility & gives them a chance of getting their money back.

Been wondering how this works myself. Say my cellar is raided and I lose a case of 1990 Margaux or bottles of 66 Cheval Blanc (For example). I would be wanting the money to go and replace this. Recieving the value of the current vinatge is no good to me whatsover, I could hardly replace a couple of bottles for this. Equally the value of the wine at auction is also no good as you can only relace your wine if it happens to appear at an auction. Since rarer wines are not available at auction every day the only option is to hunt the net and buy and ship. from overseas of which I have a pretty good idea of what I would be paying, close to $1000 a bottle, I can't see them wearing this. But if you are not going to get this then what is the point of the insurance in the first place? Any ideas on how you go about getting 'replacement value' (Because this is quite different from the value of the current vintage, or the value of the wine at auction)

Regan, I don't really know how the insurer is going to deal with it yet.

But i have sent off my inventory to 3 retailers and to Langtons so far. They are going to quote the current replacement cost of each one, regardless of availability.

I'll keep you all posted.

Blake.

Blake,

Bummer you had some tasty stuff on the list you sent me....

Cheers

Dave

Regan wrote:Any ideas on how you go about getting 'replacement value' (Because this is quite different from the value of the current vintage, or the value of the wine at auction)

I think Blake has it right - Langtons et al can estimate what the value of the wines would be "if" they put them up for auction. They are obliged to either replace or pay the amount it would cost to replace. The insurers (as you rightly say) couldn't replace everything. I'm sure they'd be happy to pay Langton's estimates - but probably not pay for Blake to tour the world's great wine regions on a gallant quest to replace everything (though who'd complain if they did!!)

One of the reasons they reserve the right to "replace like with like" is that they often negotiate preferential rates (e.g with electrical, bicycle, camera stores with whom they can get some pretty smart discounts), thus although they replace like for like - it often costs them less. If they don't have such a relationship with a wine merchant, then it makes no sense for them to do anything but a cash settlement.

If they ever tried to offer a new vintage to replace an old or an alternative wine, then I'm positive you'd be well within your rights to refuse (assuming Australian law is similar to UK law). In which case they'd have to give you the cash instead.

... and finally
After all this serious stuff, the name of the industry magazine in UK that covers this field is "Post" magazine. I believe the Australian version is somewhat more populist!