Jewelry insurance – Who needs it?

You don’t want to find out after a break-in that your stolen jewelry was not fully covered or covered at all by your insurance policy. It’s a good idea to take time now to figure out if jewelry insurance would be a wise investment.

Special pieces of jewelry often have much sentimental value attached to them. Whether you need jewelry insurance or not depends on two things:

The total value of jewelry in your home, be it a house, apartment or condo, can quickly add up into the thousands, especially when you start thinking about the items you no longer wear (or never did!)

Your home insurance policy does usually cover valuables but only up to a standard limit. Although the limit varies between insurance companies, most policies have a special limit of $5,000 for jewelry, which is the maximum amount they will pay in the event of a loss. This limit typically applies to all of your jewelry in total and your claim would still be subject to your deductible; that is the amount you must pay first.

You may still have receipts for some of your jewelry, which at least documents the original cost of those pieces, but that may not reflect their current value or replacement value. Maybe you are lucky enough to have items of jewelry passed down through the family but you’re probably not sure what they are worth today.

In order to insure your jewelry, you will need to get an appraisal done on the items you wish to have covered. If the appraised value of all of your jewelry exceeds the limits of your current policy, then your insurance broker can set up a Personal Articles Floater for you, offered by most insurance companies. There will be an additional cost to protect these valuables but usually you would not have to pay any deductible for a claim on any of these items.

Just because you have jewelry insurance does not mean all possible losses are covered. Some questions you may want to ask are:

If you have any questions about protecting your jewelry or any other valuables, feel free to talk with the insurance experts at Mitch Insurance Brokers. Simply give us a call at 1-800-731-2228 or email us at info@nullmitchinsurance.com. We’d be happy to help you.