Contents Insurance- Are your new gifts covered?

The Holiday Season is a gift giving one. It is also an important time to think about your contents insurance as this is the portion of your homeowners insurance that covers your personal belongings and the contents of your home in the event of covered claim.

Your content coverage typically provides a set amount of coverage-usually about 50-70% of your dwelling coverage. For example, if you have $150,000 worth of dwelling coverage, you probably also have at least $75,000 worth of coverage to replace your home’s contents in the event they were lost in a fire or other disaster.

So, if you received any valuable gifts this season or purchased anything valuable for our home, you should consider your homeowners insurance coverage and make sure you have enough to cover any expensive new items.

For example, let’s say you receive a piece of jewelry. While jewelry is covered under your Contents Coverage, there is a limit of usually about $1500 for jewelry lost in theft. If your jewelry totals more than that, you should definitely consider scheduling an endorsement on your policy to cover the total value.

Also, if you keep a home inventory (good for you!) be sure to add any valuable gifts that you received to your home inventory list. In the event of a loss, it is especially difficult to prove ownership of gifts as we often don’t have the receipts. Take pictures and document your ownership.  If you don’t keep a home inventory already- start!  Here is a link to home inventory spread sheet we created for our customers.