Is my jewelry covered?

Nearly everyone has a piece of jewelry that they treasure. Even the smallest pieces might sometimes be worth thousands of dollars. It stands to reason that you’ll want to insure each piece in your collection. So what’s the best way to do so? There are few ways you can guarantee that you have adequate coverage for your jewelry.

In many cases, protection for your jewelry will come from your homeowner’s insurance. However, you will often have expand this protection due to the higher values associated with these items

Insuring Jewelry is Important

Jewelry is expensive. It is also extremely vulnerable to loss or theft. In home break-ins, it is one of the most-commonly stolen items. Because of its value, it’s often easy to pawn for cash or other assets. Furthermore, it usually is hard to track. Thus, the loss of your jewelry might not only be costly, but also irreversible.

After an unpreventable jewelry loss, you might want money to replace or repair it. If you have insurance on the item, you can often recoup some, or all of, the cost of your losses. Yet, the key in getting coverage is to determine whether you have the appropriate coverage at all.

How to Do It

To insure your jewelry, first look at your homeowners’ insurance policy. You’ll likely find possessions insurance for your personal belongings. If a covered incident causes a loss of or damage to your jewelry, you might start a claim under this protection.

Tread carefully, however. You might find that you don’t have adequate insurance for the jewelry.

• Some policies wont’ cover the full cost of the item. One reason for this is because the value of the jewelry exceeds the amount your policy will pay per item – called replacement cost. Many policies have per item limits. If one applies, you might still have to pay for a chunk of the jewelry replacement yourself.
• For certain (or even all) jewelry your policy might not cover the loss in any way. The policy will make jewelry an excluded item.
• Most un-endorsed homeowners policies have a sub-limit of coverage for jewelry - $2,500 and $5,000 limits are common.

What can you do in such situations? The good news is that you can often make amendments to your policy to extend jewelry coverage or purchase a separate floater policy to cover high-valued items.

Getting More Coverage

Ask your insurance agent at 410-312-7800 about buying a jewelry floater for your policy.It will extend specifically to jewelry. You’ll be able to target a high value of coverage to that heirloom necklace, custom ring and more. You’ll have a better guarantee of full or near-full compensation for the lost item.