Hurricane Ike Took Out My TV

Okay – Normally I do not think of property insurance as an investment, but get this-

In 1992 I bought a 20” TV from Radio Shack. It was a discontinued model, its price was slashed and I had an employee discount so I ended up paying about $150 for it. That TV made its way across at least three continents, had every piece broken off it you could think of, long had been separated from its remote control and only barely still worked. At some point in the last 5 years it went to live at my sister-in-law’s house as a TV for the spare bedroom.

Fast forward to this summer where Hurricane Ike took out a whole lot of power to Houston Residents. Sadly enough the Old Radio Shack TV was a victim of the power outages/fluctuation and the old set finally died. The Insurance company paid my sister-in-law $150 for the value of the TV.

My jaw dropped! I seriously can’t believe that they gave any money at all for this 16-year-old barely-working TV.

Moral of the story: Get the insurance with the replacement value. Seriously.

In a future post I'll tell the story of how The Government and USAA replaced my entertainment center when we lived in Ghana.