Are Your Valuable Possessions Insured?

If you have a home, condominium, or tenant insurance policy, the policy will cover your personal contents that belong to you in the home, condominium, or apartment if there is a loss up to a certain amount.  This coverage is called personal property, and it is required on all owner-occupied homeowners, condominium, or tenant policies.   Personal property coverage is also referred to as “Coverage C” on the policies, and it will cover things like your furniture, kitchen tools, clothes, and other decorations.  A good rule of thumb is: anything that is carried in after you move in will be covered in personal property.

However, there are limits on what personal property will cover and this depends on the policy and the company issuing the policy.  For more valuable items such as jewelry, guns, furs, hearing aids, fine art, musical equipment, and photographic equipment, to insure these independently at replacement cost they might need to be scheduled on your policy.  Scheduling items on your insurance policy means insuring the item by itself if something were to happen to it.  For example:  if you have a nice watch that’s worth about $5,000.00 you would schedule this so that if it is lost or stolen, the watch itself will be covered with its own deductible that is separate from your home deductible.  It is very common to insure scheduled items with a $0 deductible; thus, you would not be out of pocket any if it were lost or stolen.

In some instances, an appraisal is needed for the item that is being scheduled, and this is primarily decided by the amount the item is insured for.  You can get appraisals at purchase or visit your local specialty store to get the appraisal for the item.

Protecting your most valuable personal items is important.  Imagine going through airport security and leaving your watch at the security checkpoint, boarding the plane, and realizing you have left it.  If your watch is scheduled on your insurance policy, its covered at full replacement cost.  Talk to your local independent insurance agent to learn more about what items can be scheduled and how each insurance company handles the specifics of scheduling an item.