Contents Insurance to Protect Your Special Property

Contents Insurance to Protect Your Special Property
Because some items aren’t fully covered by standard policies.

When you have valuable items or property, you need to make sure they’re protected against all kinds of hazards. Unfortunately, many folks mistakenly believe their homeowners, renters, or business policy provides coverage for all their property, regardless of type. However, this isn’t true, which is why it’s so important to be informed about which property requires additional coverage before disaster strikes.

Many policies don’t offer enough personal or business property coverage, also called contents insurance. But luckily we can help you find the right type of contents insurance to help protect all your belongings or business property, regardless of how valuable or breakable it is. First, here’s a closer look at contents insurance and why it’s important.

What Types of Personal or Business Property Need Extra Contents Insurance?

Contents insurance is a section of homeowners, renters, and business insurance policies, but for certain types of property, it’s not enough. You might need additional contents insurance for the following types of personal or business property:

  • Artwork
  • Jewelry
  • Antiques
  • Rugs
  • Gold/silver/bouillon
  • Stamps and other valuable collections
  • Firearms
  • Drones
  • Fine china

Basically, special property in need of additional contents insurance often comes in one of three forms:

  • Old/antique
  • Highly valuable
  • Extremely fragile

Items are considered valuable based on their actual cash value or replacement value (more on this next), not on which items are important to you and your family. Your independent insurance agent can help advise as to which pieces of property in your home or business require additional coverage.

Why Do Certain Types of Property Need Additional Coverage?

Certain types of business or personal property need additional contents coverage because they’d be much more expensive for your insurance company to repair or replace. Some types of property are insured by standard policies against certain perils, but not all. Especially fragile property like fine china, for example, would often be insured against disasters like fire and wind, but not against breakage, since the item is so susceptible to it. 

Special property for your home or business needs to be fully protected not just value wise, but against anything that could potentially happen to it. That’s what makes additional contents coverage so important. An independent insurance agent can help you get all your special property covered against most major disasters, for its actual cash value or replacement value.

The Basics of Contents Coverage

The contents insurance section of homeowners and renters policies has two very distinct coverage gaps that are important to understand. To ensure your property is covered sufficiently, become familiar with these aspects of your policy.

  • Valuation: Your insurance policy has a valuation clause regarding how it determines the value of your personal property at the time of a loss. The first type, actual cash value, is calculated by taking the purchase price of an item, minus depreciation. The second type, replacement cost, determines the price of the item if it were bought new today. 
  • Sublimits: Homeowners insurance companies have determined some categories of personal property are much riskier to insure than others, and have established sublimits for these. Basically, it’s a fraction of the limit that would normally apply to a loss in the property category. So certain, more valuable or fragile items may be covered to a lesser extent than others.

Most homeowners and renters policies allow policyholders to increase the limits on some or all of these categories with endorsements and additional premiums. Policyholders can also “schedule” valuable items by having them appraised and listed separately. An independent insurance agent can provide you with further details.

Best Companies for Contents Insurance

Contents insurance is available from many different insurance companies, and the best way to find the right carrier for you is through working with our agents. They know which carriers to recommend to meet your needs, and can provide informed suggestions based on company reliability, rates, and more.


 

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