There might come a time when your personal property is stolen or damaged as a result of a natural disaster or a fire. In any case, if you do have insurance coverage for your personal property, it is wise to take an inventory of all that you own.
Some home owners’ insurance policies do cover a certain amount of personal property up to the policy limit of loss. Should you lose some or all of your property if the loss exceeds the policy limit, well, you are out of luck. Then again, it makes no sense to pay for vaule coverage in excess of the total value of the property that you do own.
In other words, if my property was worth $6,000 it would be truly stupid to purchase coverage for losses that will exceed that $6,000 level. Whether you own your home home or you rent the place where you reside, personal property insurance is available for purchase from most insurance companies. To do so, you might have to call an independent insurance agent in order to purchase such coverage.
However, before you do decide to purchase that insurance it is wise to list every item of value that you do own and that which will be within your home. It is also wise to take a picture of each wall within your home, with the idea to photograph all of your property that is located in each of the rooms within your home.
Having made a list and taken all of those pictures you can now match all of the receipts for the cost of those items that you might still have and will most certainly show proof of ownership. This is also an excellent way to show the cost of what you have and when you purchased those items. You see, the insurance company will most certainly calculate a depreciated book value for your loss and only, if not expressly provided for in the policy, pay you that estimated drpreciated value to settle your loss claim.
If you haven’t already guessed, the value of autiques and works of art will not be paid if you do not insure those items as being of such value and also be able to have an expert evaluation of those things prior to the purchase of such insurance. The same is true for antique automobiles. Regular insurance does not take into account collectors value.
In any event, if you can establish the fact that you do own the items in question, using purchase receipts, lists and pictures you should have no difficulty being paid something back on such losses, even if what you do receive is less than you expected to receive.