[TowerTalk] Insurance for my tower??

[Timothy Coker]

John, remember that he has an existing concrete base that requires a certain model tower that only US Towers will sell to him new (or their distributors). He can’t go buy a Tashjian model unless he wants to go down the road of excavating and putting in a new base.
The insurance agency is liability driven... what that meant in my case was that we looked at both repair and replacement options. My adjuster wasn’t even considering finding someone’s used tower and then insuring that the used one would absolutely not fall down to possibly hurt someone(s) or property. Imagine that payout scenario...
She consistently reminded me of this when we went down the road of repairs even... it’s not like they have a huge network of certified firms that specialize in radio towers who will come out and economically make repairs with a guarantee. They have that with auto and such, but not this apparently.
So at the end of the day the replacement policy did exactly that... it replaced the tower and all related tower components with new items. Luckily I didn’t have any antenna damage and so we only needed to include take down and install labor costs for the antennas. 
In Dick’s scenario he’d have damaged everything on his hands. It’s a lot of money to do things through their processes. 
Again, when Dick laid out the after scenario with crews coming in and taking down / putting up while the home owner sat back... that’s what the insurance company pays for, just like a dented Corolla having the door replaced instead of the dent sucked out using a tool from Autozone by the owner.
It’s a process for sure and one that surprised me when looking back at my budget from installing the tower... but then I didn’t charge myself for any labor back then and so didn’t a few of my friends. My adjusted laughed at me and reminded me that’s why I’m insured as I couldn’t have done this myself as easily or quickly now that it’s been many years.
73,
Tim / N6WIN.


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone


On Tuesday, April 3, 2018, 18:39, john at kk9a.com wrote:

Well US Towers apparently do not want to sell to hams.  Tashtowers is
significantly less expensive and the original poster installed a 20 year old
tower. It is highly unlikely that the concrete base would become damaged in
a storm.

John KK9A 

-----Original Message-----
From: Andre VanWyk [mailto:nj0f at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2018 5:47 PM
To: john at kk9a.com; towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Insurance for my tower??

I can tell you this. If it is a US Tower, you can probably budget on $28K to
get a new 72ft HDX motorized tower in place on your existing slab. I was
about to pull the trigger on buying two used HDX589 towers and both needed
new cabling and one needed a T-base.
1 new T-Base, 2 re-cabling kits without shipping (or labor) = $7,500. 
Insane!
I would say insure it for $30K and sleep good at night....
73
NJ0F


-----Original Message-----
From: john at kk9a.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2018 1:56 PM
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Insurance for my tower??

You can increase your home owner's accessory structure insured amounts.
$50k for a 20 year old 72' crankup seems excessive.

John KK9A

Dick Blumenstein WroteL

I have just completed a tower build which took me a good part of a year to
do.

Last October a rare tornado came through the area and devastated a lot of
homes, trees and property. I started wondering if my house insurance would
have covered the tower and antennas if it was up at that time. I found
out.... mostly not; i.e. Actual Cash Value (ACV) not Replacement Cost, and
then only up to 10% of my house insurance limit. They also couldn't tell me
exactly how an adjuster would calculate the ACV.

The 72' US Tower I bought and installed was in fairly good shape and about
20 years old. I realized that one of the scenarios in a downed tower would
be the ability to find the _exact_ same replacement tower to exactly fit
over the embedded 1" bolts sticking up through the concrete base. I don't
even want to think about that issue!

I checked with the ARRL tower insurance folks (Risk Strategies Company) and
their limit is only $15K and hence I was told they couldn't insure it.

Since a replacement value on the tower, motorized winch systems, prop pitch
motor, mast and antennae if totaled (plus labor to haul away the broken
pieces and INSTALL all the replacement parts) could cost $50K or more (for
new), I was wondering if any other company insures ham radio towers?

Thanks,

Dick, K0CAT

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