6 Household Items You Should Definitely Insure

Renters Insurance Basics

Everyone talks about having renter’s insurance or personal property insurance to replace your items if they are damaged in a fire or a flood. After a loss, your insurance company will use an adjuster to “help you” evaluate the value of the items lost and then decide how much is fair and adequate compensation. This assistance from the adjuster will include depreciating your personal effects for time and other factors.

There are times, however, when you might want to consider having an extra level of protection for certain items in your home. Special items of significant lasting, collectible, or memorable value. These things can be specifically mentioned (and priced) in an insurance policy to see to it that you receive compensation for them, that you feel is fair, in case they are ever lost in an accident of some kind.

• Jewelry: The good news is, that unless it is directly exposed to a fire for a good period of time, most jewelry is rarely destroyed in a manner that insurance has to worry about. Theft, however, is another matter altogether, and while your insurance coverage will reimburse you for any jewelry lost, unless it has been recently appraised by a professional, how much you get for it - despite any sentimental value, will be depreciated.
• Collectibles: You collection of Disney coffee mugs has an insurance value of what you paid for them minus depreciation of time. After all, they’re just ordinary coffee mugs, right? Who cares if one of them was engraved with the date that you proposed to your wife, or another was a special edition only available on New Year’s Eve, 1999? Certainly not your insurance company - unless you tell them otherwise.
• Photographs: Once they’re gone, there’s no bringing them back. Old photographs of your family and friends that were taken for special occasions (like weddings or family reunions) will cause you to experience a sense of striking loss after a fire. The insurance company will value these pictures at next to nothing if you don’t take precautions to include an exception for them.
• Computer Equipment: In this digital day and age, many people keep some extraordinarily valuable items on their home computers including digital photographs, journals and letters from loved ones, or even business work and reports. This exception is especially important if you have a home business of any kind.
• Home Improvements: If you’ve ever spent a few weekends laying down expensive wood flooring or installing a nice chandelier that you paid extra for, then you may want to consider adding it to your policy at a special amount - at least for a few years until the wear and tear of the home and aging diminishes its value.
• Irreplaceables: Like that quilt your grandmother made for you when you were a child and sick with the flu. If it is the only item you have to remember her by, it has special, significant value that you will want to be compensated for if it is lost.

To get special coverage for these items on your renter’s or personal property insurance, you should call your insurance company and specifically request to add them to your policy. The insurance agent will detail the item, ask how much you want to insure them for, and based on that amount, your policy will increase slightly. The upside is in having the peace of mind of knowing that if your valuables were ever lost or stolen, you will receive a compensation that does not insensitively treat them as if they were ordinary and run of the mill.