[mindslight]

A camera is repairable, so it's not like they throw out the entire "broken" item. Dropping the camera would have just created a second problem.

It's an interesting line, between accident and neglect. Reading the article, my initial reaction was that it is ridiculous for their insurance to not cover this damage. But yet in general I do enjoy the non-diligent actually retaining some moral hazard. This "absent agency" problem is usually addressed with a deductible, but that still doesn't fully price in the cost of easily-prevented damage.

Recently renting a box truck and not wanting to be on the hook for a $150k piece of capital equipment, I got the damage waiver. But I had wished for a cheaper policy that would have excluded damage from low drive-throughs and parking garages, which presumably makes up the majority of their claims. Alas.

[justin66]

> A camera is repairable, so it's not like they throw out the entire "broken" item. Dropping the camera would have just created a second problem.

That's the irony about insurance that I was pointing out. The much worse situation would have been covered.

[mindslight]

Erm, do you mean "worse" as in more money to repair a dropped camera (new body, realigning lenses, etc), or worse if there were two separate problems? In the second case, I'm guessing the repair technician would say "In addition to being dropped, the image sensor is also burnt", and the camera shop would say "okay, looks like you burnt the sensor with the eclipse, and then most likely dropped the camera on purpose", and would cover nothing.

In general, insurance relies heavily on intent. Intentionally breaking the camera on the ground would not be covered. Gross negligence (like ignoring the warning of the camera shop and proceeding to burn the sensor) is interesting because to the person doing it it feels like an accident, yet to most everyone else it feels like they didn't try hard enough not to.