Friday, February 23, 2007

Home Insurance: Is Your Jewelry Covered?

By Scott Lunt Platinum Quality Author

Whether you have home insurance or are shopping for a home owner insurance quote, you may be wondering if the policy covers your jewelry and other valuable possessions. Here's what typically happens.

When you take out a standard policy for home insurance, items such as jewelry, watches and furs are typically covered already up to certain limits. The coverages may include fire, theft, vandalism and other perils named in your policy.

Make sure you take a look at the limits in the standard policy. This is the amount the insurance company will pay you in the event of a loss. The limits in a standard policy may or may not be high enough. For example, a typical policy may only pay $1,000 for theft of jewelry.

If you would like more coverage for your jewelry, you can sometimes pay more for higher limits, or schedule items through a separate "floater" policy to cover the jewelry. Scheduling items can cost more in premiums, but it can also give you much more coverage. Also, the floater policy often provides coverage for many more types of losses such as losing your wedding ring while traveling.

Be sure to ask lots of questions and fully understand the policy before purchasing. For example, you may be required to have your jewelry appraised before a home owner insurance company will underwrite the policy. Find out if there's a deductible and what the specific coverages are. Do the coverages include full replacement cost or repair costs?

Rates can vary between companies so when you're shopping for home insurance, make sure to get at least three comparison quotes. Provide the same information to each company for the most accurate comparison quote.

Scott Lunt is a freelance writer with over 15 years experience writing about home insurance. You can compare home owner insurance quotes plus find more tips on saving on car, home, life, health and long-term care insurance at LowerYourInsurance.com.

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