My wife and I have been discussing whether its worth the extra premiums to add Personal Articles Policy to our standard Homeowners policy.
We have a new laptop, a older tower pc, a few fairly new handguns, and my three guitars. I especially am concerned about my vintage 1975 Martin guitar and new Fender Strat.
I’d guess others have already had this conversation? What did you decide?
I haven’t gotten prices yet. I suspect sticker shock is in my future. 
Isn’t it usually fairly inexpensive?
My aunt told me that I could just take photos of the items and the serial numbers to give to my agent.
Apparently the insurance likes to know if theres a high value item in the home? A claim on a $400 guitar they might not question. A claim for a $1600 guitar might be an issue? They want to be sure prices weren’t being inflated for a claim.
I’m not sure how this works.
Your policy already includes several thousand dollars of coverage for household stuff doesn’t it? How much is your stuff worth vs how much coverage do you have? But you definitely should have anything valuable documented.
A lot of homeowner’s policies have stupid-low limitations on some classes of personal property. e.g. for a 4500sf ginourmous house with lots of goodies my name brand stupid-expensive homeowner’s policy covered electronics up to a grand total of $2000. Every PC, printer, fax, tablet, phone, every TV, every stereo, DVR, etc. The whole lot could be stolen or destroyed and all they’d pay is $2K total. That wouldn’t even cover the sales tax on what I spent on all that stuff.
My wife has a bunch of expensive professional musical instruments. They’re another area that traditional homeowner’s coverage either excludes or limits to paying out only tiny token amounts.
Ditto cameras, film or electronic. Original art, guns, & collector’s items are other common exclusions or limitations. Jewelry too. You think your wife’s diamond wedding ring is covered? Probably not for more than a smidgen of what it’s worth.
As a rule of thumb, if it’s something which is dense in value, there’s an exclusion or limitation on it.
The good news is an extra $100+/year covers all those things fully. It really is a pittance. But you have to order the extra policy & provide documentation for each item & pay for each item’s special coverage.
READ YOUR POLICY. It may cover far, far less than you think. It’s no good to discover that after the fire or break-in.
I would only do it for something like a piece of jewelry worth five figures-plus or something. Maybe a huge set of sterling or a piece of museum-quality art. I think that would only be a couple hundred per year. Your regular homeowner’s policy will cover computers, electronics and stuff.
My (uninsured)2 cents.
I have renters insurance, not homeowners, but I did get a “Fine Arts Floater” for an antique clock I inherited from my grandmother. It’s running me about nine dollars a year.
I insure something only if I could not bear the loss. I suppose a 5 figure piece of jewelry might qualify, but I can’t think of anything in my house that would.
I plan on seeing my agent next week. My biggest concern is my Vintage Martin and the new Fender Strat guitar. Those were once in a lifetime purchases for me. I wouldn’t be able to justify spending the $$$$ to replace them. We’re starting to put money aside for our eventual retirements in 15 years.
I’ll sleep better knowing my musical instruments are insured.
I think that’s your answer. See what it would cost, I would suspect it will be a price you find worth it.
It depends on the items. My homeowners policy covers something ridiculously low for jewelry and watches - like $2500. I found that, in my case, buying a separate policy from a specialty insurance company is better than adding a rider on my homeowners policy.
For example, I just bought another watch. Mid 4-figures, nothing really nice like a Patek or anything. My policy through Jewelers Mutual covers loss, damage, or theft anywhere in the world, even if its my fault. Zero deductible as well. I only pay $45 a year, while my homeowners quoted me $86 for a $500 deductible. So if I leave my watch in a hotel room while traveling, I just file the claim and I get a new watch. With my homeowners policy, I’m totally out of luck.
We have riders for our electronics/computers (there are 7 working computers in the house and 2 TVs), for jewelry (I have 2 nice pieces that were picked up at the source, and would cost way more to replace than we paid to get them) and for our CD/DVD collection. All together, it’s pretty cheap, but if we had a fire, it would easily be $10k+ to replace the computers, another $10k for the TVs and associated AV equipment, several thousand to replace the jewelry and another $6k+ to replace the CDs/DVDs.
So for me, it’s worth it when the cost of the rider is so low I won’t miss it, and the cost of replacing the items would make me wince.
They simply won’t cover the value of certain items beyond a certain amount, that is fairly small.
I don’t know what items fall into that category - I mean, I know jewelry does as well as artwork and the like, but I might well have a 5,000 dollar sofa and I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t require extra coverage for that.
But if you own any jewelry which is valuable and portable, it’s likely worth the extra cost. Usually they’ll require a written appraisal for such an item, however (and I did get such an appraisal for the 3 pieces of jewelry I had covered).
For routine household stuff, or pricier versions of normal stuff (e.g. the 1,600 guitar vs a secondhand one) then yes, photos are helpful. And it couldn’t hurt to check with the insurance agent to see what stuff requires the riders.
If you have a standard HO policy, there is probably no stated limit (other than the total personal property coverage limit) on musical instruments but not so on firearms but the gun limit usually applies to loss by theft only as opposed to loss by fire, water damage or other named perils. In any event, discuss this with your agent during the meeting.
One of the main benefits of a PAF endorsement is that it increases the perils insured against. Under your standard HO policy, your guitar has about 18 named perils covering it. These include fire, wind, hail, theft, etc. Under a PAF, the coverage increases to an open peril coverage meaning that if anything damages it, it’s covered UNLESS there is a listed exclusion. Normal exclusion are wear and tear, act of war, intentional damage, etc.
An example would be: You’re walking to your car carrying the guitar when you stumble and drop your guitar breaking its neck. Your HO would not cover this but a PAF would because the cause of loss is not excluded.
Finally, when you get a PAF, an appraisal on the item is usually necessary to establish value and the amount of insurance applying to that item. The hidden benefit of an appraisal is that in the event of a loss, you no longer have to prove what an item is worth because you have that appraisal. Without it, proving what an item is worth can be quite difficult, especially it it was stolen or somehow destroyed beyond recognition. This burden of proof is always the insured’s responsibility.