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Comment by justin66 | Hacker News Reader

The amusing bit is at the end, where the author tacitly admits that their add-on camera insurance is somewhat crap. Someone who damaged a rental camera by pointing it at the eclipse would, ironically, have been better off if they then proceeded to "accidentally" drop the camera from a height onto concrete:

Unfortunately, these types of damage are considered neglect, as warnings were given out to customers before the solar eclipse. Our LensCap insurance plan, which can be added to rentals for a small nominal fee, does not protect from neglect but is an excellent tool for those who are worried about their rental and want to protect themselves from any accidental damage.

(but perhaps not really - there are enough wiggle words in that policy that I wonder if they ever pay out on expensive damage at all: https://help.lensrentals.com/26475-damage-lenscap-protection... )

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Intentionally using gear inappropriately in ways that are highly likely to result in damage isn't what insurance is for. Reasonable guidelines around what insurance will cover keeps it cheaper for everyone.

Especially with an explicit warning sent out about the eclipse.

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.

> 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.

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.

They were very upfront about the fact that eclipse damage would not be covered.

They also don’t cover damage from Color Runs, and they’re upfront about that too.

Landing on concrete isn't likely to melt the sensor though.

"Oops, dropped it from the building from which I was shooting the eclipse, it fell 200m on concrete" – hands in pile of plastic.

(Although this would be a very unfair move)

many of those depicted lenses and camera bodies have metal exteriors/frames. ignoring the glass, they'd probably still be in a single piece after 200m. and without any obviously melted bits.

Then walk with them over a road in NYC and accidentally drop them so a 60t truck drives over them. Should thoroughly remove any and all evidence.

Upvoting just for the phrase "wiggle words".

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