Valuables coverage checker

Your personal property coverage can be $200,000 and still pay only $1,500 for stolen jewelry. Standard policies, such as the 2011 ISO HO-3, cap certain categories of belongings at small fixed amounts, called special limits, and this checker lines those caps up against what you actually own.

How to use it

For each category, enter the total value of what you own, using appraisals, receipts or current replacement prices. Leave a category blank or at zero if it does not apply. The second box beside each category is your policy's limit. It starts at the standard figure; change it if your declarations page or an endorsement shows a different one, or if you have scheduled items, in which case leave those items out of the "you own" figure. The categories are cash and bullion, securities and documents, jewelry and watches, firearms, silverware, boats and their trailers and motors, other trailers, business property at home, business property away from home, and portable electronics in a vehicle.

How the math works

For each category the gap is what you own minus the limit, never below zero. The headline is the sum of the gaps, and a table shows each category's value, limit and unpaid amount. Warnings follow for the categories where scheduling or a different policy is the usual answer.

Say, hypothetically, you own $8,000 of jewelry and carry $500 in cash at home, with every limit at its default. Jewelry is capped at $1,500 for theft, leaving $6,500 over the limit. Cash is capped at $200, leaving $300. The headline is $6,800 above your limits. The tool then warns that scheduling (a rider or floater) is the usual fix for the jewelry.

What it assumes

The default limits come from the Coverage C special limits of liability in the ISO homeowners 3 form (HO 00 03 05 11, May 2011 edition, published by the Maine Bureau of Insurance): $200 for money, $1,500 for securities, $1,500 for boats and their gear, $1,500 for other trailers, $2,500 for business property on the premises and $1,500 away from it, $1,500 for portable electronics in a vehicle, and for theft only, $1,500 for jewelry and watches and $2,500 each for firearms and silverware. The form's eleventh limit, $250 for antennas, tapes, discs and similar media used in a vehicle, is not in the tool. The values you enter are your own. Nothing here is market data. ISO's newer 2022 forms raise several of these limits (jewelry theft to $2,000, for example), but North Carolina's version does not take effect until June 1, 2027, and most policies still use the 2011 form or an insurer's own.

Where it stops being right

The jewelry, firearms and silverware limits apply to theft. A fire is paid under your general personal property limit, so for those three categories the "not covered" column describes the theft gap, not every cause of loss. The boat limit applies to any covered loss, and under the form's windstorm and hail peril boats are covered only inside a fully enclosed building. Each limit is the total for all property in the category per loss, and none of them adds to your Coverage C limit.

Your insurer's form may use different numbers, and many offer higher special limits by endorsement. Scheduled items leave the general coverage and are insured for an agreed amount; terms differ, so ask whether accidental loss is included and whether a deductible applies. Expect to need an appraisal or receipt. Business property beyond these caps needs a home business endorsement or a business policy (business property at home: what a homeowners policy pays); watercraft beyond the cap needs a boat policy, which also covers liability on the water (Golf carts, boats and ATVs under a homeowners policy). Read special limits on jewelry, firearms, cash and collectibles and scheduling jewelry, art and valuables for the detail, and build the list of what you own with the home inventory builder.