What does the damage insurance actually cover?

Covered: accidental drops, minor dents, stuck valves and keys, ripped corks, mouthpiece mishaps, the ordinary catastrophes of a student’s year. Plus a loaner instrument while yours is on the bench, when one is available, at no extra cost. One request from the repair side: bring every piece. Screws, corks, fragments, the works. We repair better with all the parts.

Not covered: theft or loss, on any instrument. Consumables like reeds, oils, strings, and straps. Deep scratches and names carved into varnish. Routine cleaning. Damage from clear neglect, and instruments left behind on buses, planes, or in vehicles.

Instruments should live somewhere climate-controlled; leaving it in a hot car all summer or next to a radiator all winter counts as neglect, not as an accident. For the situations our coverage does not reach (theft from home, a school mishap, a car break-in), your homeowner’s policy, the school’s insurance, or your auto policy may apply, and it is genuinely worth the phone call to check.

Our advice: take the insurance. Kids drop things, accidents happen in careful families too, and the insurance is what settles the wear-versus-accident question in your favor.

The arithmetic makes the case better than we can. Insurance runs about $72 for the year on a clarinet, and it is required on our brand-new A Line band instruments. Decline it and you are responsible for any damage at our labor rate, which is $175 an hour. One accident usually costs more than several years of coverage.