Do you have Renter's Insurance or Home Owner's Insurance? A lot of policies cover "loss of intellectual property". Was your failed storage device used in a business? If so, your business insurance may cover things like "loss of intellectual property" or "business interuption" or even "electronic data loss" specifically.
Word of CAUTION: Read this BEFORE calling your Insurance Claims Department
Never ask, "My hard drive crashed, is it covered?" When calling to check on coverage many consumers mistakenly ask if data recovery is covered under their insurance policy. Data recovery is usually available as a rider, however, the stuff on your computer: tax returns, business plans, your writings and records and even photographs are all considered to be "intellectual property" or "important paperwork" or "photographs" which, more often than not, ARE COVERED by your insurance policy. A Data Recovery Rider would only be necessary if you are trying to recover property that does NOT fall into one or more of the categories above, which are already covered.
NO doesn't always mean NO
If you made the common mistake of asking if data recovery is covered, and you were told it is not, you may just need to speak with a supervisor to confirm that your important papers, tax returns, your writings, personal papers, etc are indeed covered. If they are, you're in business. Unless this "intellectual property" coverage expressly excludes intellectual property saved on a storage media of some sort. This exclusion rarely exists.
Homeowner's Insurance May Pay
Your homeowners insurance may cover this under "Loss of intellectual property" or "Loss of personal papers" or even "Loss of family photos" coverage. Without mentioning "computers" or "hard drives" call your insurance agent to ask if your personal papers and or intellectual property is covered under your policy. If asked to explain what you mean by this, tell them household budget, tax returns, family photos, etc.
Business Insurance May Pay
Business insurance coverage comes in many shapes and sizes and no two business insurance policies are the same. That being said, many business insurance policies may include one or more of the following specific coverages:
- Interruption of Business Coverage
Business interruption insurance offers coverage for any loss of income while property (including your computer data) is being repaired or replaced. Any forced closing of a business as a result of a covered property claim is considered an interruption of business and warrants the implementation of the insurance policy. Therefore, business interruption insurance reimburses a business for loss of profits during a forced full or partial closing of their operational facilities.
- Intellectual Property Coverage
While fire insurance was at one time a novel concept, specialized insurance coverage for intellectual property assets is becoming a more conventional need for many businesses. Businesses, large and small, have started to take steps to protect intellectual property, and, accordingly, a market has developed specifically for insurance for intellectual property assets.
- Electronic Data Loss Coverage
The third, and most rare, type of business insurance coverage is Electronic Data Loss Coverage. Electronic Data Loss Coverage pays the cost to replace or restore electronic data destroyed or damaged as the result of causes of loss named in your policy. These 'causes of loss' often include a computer virus or harmful code.
This customer was able to get his insurance to pay for data recovery even though they didn't have a "data recovery rider" on their policy.
Our Insurance Paid!
Rated 5.0 out of 5.0 By Andrew - October 11, 2011
A 2TB hard drive crashing at a production company would normally be catastrophic. Hundreds of hours of footage could have been lost forever, but Mark and his associates at drive savers saved our butts. 100% of our data was salvaged along with our reputation with all of our production clients. Mark also was adamant that we check with our insurance company to see if we were covered, and sure enough, our insurance covered the entire cost of the recovery process. Thanks Mark!
