Scheduled Personal Property Coverage for Homeowners

Whether it’s a family heirloom, a dazzling piece of jewelry or that art piece you splurged on, your standard home or renters insurance might not be enough. Enter scheduled personal property coverage. It’s the key to ensuring your valuables are fully insured.

Scheduled personal property coverage is an insurance endorsement or “floater” that provides additional coverage for specific, high-value belongings beyond what your standard homeowners’ insurance policy covers.

You might need scheduled personal property coverage for items that are particularly valuable or unique, like jewelry, fine art, antiques, collectibles or expensive electronics — anything with a value that exceeds the standard coverage limits of your homeowners’ policy.

Costs vary by insurer, but you can generally expect to pay around $20 annually for every $1,000 of scheduled personal property coverage. So if you insure $10,000 worth of items, you might pay $200 each year.

A standard home insurance policy typically has a coverage limit for personal property, which is the maximum amount the insurance will pay in the event of a claim. Within this, there are sublimits for specific categories of items. For example, a policy might cover up to $100,000 of personal property but only $1,500 for jewelry.

Scheduled personal property coverage allows you to “schedule” individual high-value items, so they’re insured for their replacement cost value, rather than the sublimit in your standard policy.

This coverage supplements your standard homeowners or renters insurance. It covers loss or damage to the scheduled items, often with a broader range of covered perils than your regular policy. This can include theft, loss, accidental damage and sometimes even mysterious disappearance.

Generally, scheduled personal property coverage is for items that are unique, high value or irreplaceable. Covered items might include:

• Jewelry, like rings, necklaces, bracelets and watches.

• Fine art, like paintings and sculptures.

• Collectibles, like rare stamps, coins and comic books.

• Antiques, like vintage furniture, books and other heirloom pieces.

• Musical instruments, like vintage guitars and grand pianos.

• High-end electronics, like expensive cameras and audio equipment.

• Other valuables, like firearms and furs.

In many cases, you can get this coverage by adding a rider or floater to your current home or renters insurance.

Here’s how to add scheduled personal property coverage to your policy:

1. Contact your current home or renter’s insurance provider and ask about adding a scheduled personal property endorsement to your current policy.

2. Give your insurer any information it requests, like receipts, appraisals and photographs of the items.

3. Pay any premiums needed to start your coverage.

4. Update your coverage if the value of your items changes over time.

If your insurer doesn’t offer scheduled property coverage, it may offer blanket coverage as an alternative. So, what’s the difference?

Blanket coverage provides a single coverage limit for all your valuable items combined, without needing to list or appraise each item individually. A per-item limit may apply.

Say you have a total blanket valuables coverage limit of $30,000 for jewelry, with a per-item limit of $10,000. This means your jewelry is collectively insured up to $30,000, with a per-item limit of $10,000. If you own three pieces of jewelry, each worth up to $10,000, then they’re all covered. But if your engagement ring is worth $13,000, it’s only covered up to the $10,000 per-item limit.

Scheduled coverage involves itemizing and often appraising each high-value item separately.

For example, you have an expensive engagement ring worth $15,000 and a vintage watch valued at $10,000. Under a scheduled coverage policy, each item is listed separately with its appraised value. The ring is insured for $15,000 and the watch for $10,000. In case of loss or damage, each item is covered up to its full listed value.