After holidays and birthdays, special occasions, impulse buys, or just-becauses, you’ll want to think about insuring any expensive gifts you may have received. Items such as jewelry, fine arts, musical instruments, antiques, sports equipment, silverware/chinaware, electronics, gun, furs, collectibles, and family heirlooms can be scheduled on your Homeowners policy.
Most Homeowner’s policies limit coverage for items like jewelry to only $1,500 for theft on premises. You may have an option to add an ‘extended enhancement’ endorsement where most carriers will increase the limit to $5,500 total to significantly broaden the coverage, but the limit per item is $1,500, which may still not be enough for your more valuable items.
If the value of your items exceed these limits, we here at Fogle Insurance Group suggest that you ‘schedule’ your jewelry, artwork, equipment, antiques, etc. on your homeowners policy or put it on its own policy (called a Personal Inland Marine policy).
Scheduling your valuables will ensure you get the full appraised value of the item after a covered loss. It also broadens the types of losses covered to include ‘mysterious disappearance’ which will cover if the item is lost. The general cost to schedule your jewelry is around $100 per item, depending on the appraised value, if added to your homeowner’s policy. If you insure it on a Personal Inland Marine Policy the cost is a little bit more but claims on this policy typically do not effect the homeowner’s policy premium.
Depending on the value of the scheduled item the insurance carrier may require that you provide a recent appraisal before coverage is provided. When it comes to jewelry, you should have your jewelry appraised every few years to make sure you have enough coverage on the item.
Something that will help you keep track of your items and their value, to be sure of adequate coverage, is to routinely take and keep an inventory of your valuable personal items. Taking photos or videos of the items with a time stamp, receipt, or appraisal, when available, is a great way to catalog your items and we highly encourage this task.
Memories many of our pieces hold can never be replaced but protecting your pieces through insurance can ease the monetary loss. Now is a great time to contact your agent to set up a time to review your policy and inventory and make any changes needed.
