‘Tis the season for those bearing gifts

Ain’t nobody happy if momma ain’t happy. And momma ain’t gonna be happy if she loses the ring you just bought her.

  POSTAGE  by Rob Stamp

Unless, of course, you took measures to be certain the ring was properly scheduled on your homeowners or renters insurance policy.

According to the FBI (remember Efrem Zimbalist Jr.?), victims of burglary suffer more than $4 billion in lost property annually, with an average dollar loss of about $2,000 per incident.

By scheduling expensive items like jewelry, silver, rare collections and fine arts, you remove certain theft limitations common to most property insurance policies. You’ll pay an extra premium to schedule those valuables, but in return you generally get much more coverage.

• In most cases, loss by misplacement or mysterious disappearance is only covered when the item has been scheduled. Say a prong breaks off a ring and the stone falls out. Unless you’ve scheduled the ring, there’s a good chance you don’t have coverage for that because a diamond falling out of a ring is not a covered peril listed under your policy.
• Scheduled items are, in most cases, covered for the amount stated in the policy. Unless it’s way underinsured, you should be able to replace a lost or stolen item with one of like kind and quality.
• There is usually no deductible on scheduled personal property losses. That’s become rather important because the insurance industry continues to drive up minimum deductibles on homeowners policies.

If you’re shopping for that something very special for that someone very special this holiday season, don’t forget to ask the jeweler for an appraisal. We’ll want that, along with any receipts or pictures, to schedule the piece or pieces on your policy. We’ll maintain copies of everything in our file for easy access should a loss occur.

Gotta keep momma happy now, don’t we?

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