Hi hi, recently bought a camera and would like to seek your kind input..
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Do you all use dry box to keep the camera and lens ? If yes, which model or brand do you recommend ?
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Is insurance a good idea in case of damage, theft, loss, etc ? If yes, which plan or insurer to consider ?
Thank you 🙏🏼
"Bad deal" in this case is purely from a mathematics point of view.
For example, you have camera equipment worth $2000 and there's a 10 percent chance something happens and you make a successful claim with the insurance in the next ten years. So on average, you get 10% of $2000 (=$200) from the insurance within 10 years. Per year, that makes $20. If you're paying more than $20 a year, you're spending more than you can expect to get back - on average.
Obviously, those are arbitrary numbers and they could be way off. But the insurance company will do the maths right to make sure they earn more than they spend. And it's in their best interest to avoid customers who are likely to cost them more than they receive.
Of course there are cases where making a bad deal in a mathematical sense can still be beneficial overall. Your car loan is a good example, health insurance is another. And if photography really is the only thing that brings you joy, then you can accept a "bad deal" to make sure you can keep pursuing you hobby,
But an insurance is never a good way to save money. On a case-by-case basis, it can be, but on average, it isn't. It's like playing in a casino, you can leave with more money than you had before, but on average, the bank always wins (unless you're cheating).
Insurance companies are very good at taking more money from you than they give back. The ones who don't aren't around anymore.
Oh, I agree with that. I don't think anyone was thinking of insurance as an investment (except perhaps some interesting Youtube people and mutual whole life insurance policies), so this just seems like a weird way to think about it. Just like people who go to a casino - rational people aren't looking at it as any sort of investment or deal, but paying for a certain type of entertainment.
I also wonder who's looking at Insurance as a way to make them money? It's to either smooth out costs without a required ramp up time (i.e. you might be able to dedicate $20 a year to self-insuring your camera gear, but better hope nothing happens for 10 years which BTW is getting close to the useful lifetime of the gear.) or to improve piece of mind. $150 a year to literally think of my risk with my camera gear going out / using it at $100 vs $11,000? That's really cheap to me.