The Walters Agency Podcast

Beyond Standard Coverage: Insuring Your Valuable Collections

• Timothy Walters • Episode 3

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Are High Value Items Covered Under Standard Policies?

Do you know what's actually covered under your homeowner's insurance policy? Many homeowners are shocked to discover that their most treasured possessions—from vintage guitars and family heirlooms to fine jewelry and artwork—may have little to no protection under standard coverage.

In this eye-opening episode, Timothy Walters tackles the critical gap in protection that exists for high-value items in typical homeowner's policies. He explains that standard insurance forms often impose severe limitations or complete exclusions for valuable possessions, leaving many at risk of significant financial loss. The good news? There's a straightforward solution that many insurance customers don't know about. Timothy breaks down how personal articles policies offer specialized protection for valuable possessions—often with zero deductibles and at surprisingly affordable rates.

Ready to discover if your prized possessions are truly protected? Call or text The Walters Agency for a free 20-minute consultation to ensure everything you value has the coverage it deserves!

To learn more about The Walters Agency visit:
https://www.brightway.com/agencies/tn/knoxville/0237/team
The Walters Agency
7009 Asheville Hwy
Knoxville, TN 37924
423-417-2070

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Walters Agency podcast, where insurance meets peace of mind. Hosted by licensed insurance agent and owner, timothy Walters, we're here to help families, homeowners and small business owners throughout East Tennessee protect what matters most Our mission creating win-win-win solutions for insurance. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

You might assume your standard home insurance policy covers everything inside your home, but that's not always the case. Viable items like jewelry, fine art and collectibles often require additional coverage, so how do you ensure your prized positions are fully protected? Welcome back everybody. Skip Monty here, co-host slash producer, back in the studio with Timothy Walters, and I got a question for you. I don't have a lot of priceless artwork or jewelry or anything like that, but I did collect guitars that I've had since I was a kid, and so the question of the day is are high value items like jewelry, artwork, guitars and collectibles covered under standard policies?

Speaker 3:

So, generally speaking, the answer is yes and no. Okay, most of your standard homeowner's insurance policies that are out there on the market HO3s, ho5s, to use the form terms. They will usually have limited coverage for higher value items like jewelry, like fine art, like collector's guitars things that are not necessarily everyday use, that have higher values that would cost a lot more to replace, are usually going to either have a very, very severe limit on what the company will pay out per item or sometimes they'll be completely excluded, and that's something we talked about in a previous video. You want to know what's covered in your policy and what's not covered in your policy. You can schedule coverage for higher value items in your homeowner's insurance typically, but it's usually subject to the policy deductible and it usually is fairly expensive to schedule those things on a standard policy. So there are these things. Different companies call them different things.

Speaker 3:

I was originally a State Farm guy back in the day. They call them personal articles policies. They're inland marine policies, they're standalone and what they specialize in for personal use, for people who have jewelry, people who have guitars, specialty instruments, equipment, fine art I mean basically you can insure almost anything on them. You can insure equipment like tractors. If you're a car guy and you have a lot of stuff, tools and stuff you work on cars there can be limitations on your homeowner's insurance for that kind of thing. So if you are concerned about that and you want to make sure it's protected, it may be have a lower deductible than will be available on your homeowner's or your, your renters insurance policy. And you can look into a personal articles policy or inland marine policy and usually they're less expensive to ensure higher values and most of them will go with a zero deductible still or they'll have lower deductible. Most of the ones that I write are either zero deductible or a hundred dollar deductibles. They're very simple to write an issue. Typically most companies if it's like jewelry or something else that's really high value, they're going to want to have some kind of appraisal to establish value.

Speaker 3:

But for things like guitars or firearms or other things people might want to cover, usually you can just look that up. You know what's the current value Like for mine. I have one for my pistols, my shotguns and some of the other firearms. I just went out and I found hey, what are these costs? Now, if somebody stole them from me and I needed to replace them. What would my rigor pistol go for right now? And I had to subject that periodically on the policy and it doesn't cost much and I'm covered. So yeah, they're very easy Agents. Like riding them because they are easy-use organs. Like I said, they are valuable. If you do have that type of thing to cover because your homeowner's policy, I would be willing to bet there's some kind of limitation on the value that they'll go up to for that kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

So with a really high value, you do need you mentioned an appraisal or some kind of documentation, but we're up to things.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, different companies are going to have different thresholds for that. I work with some companies where the threshold like if you're trying to get greater than $10,000 value for one item, they're going to require some kind of appraisal or proof of value. Some companies might have a higher threshold Another one that I work with, I think the threshold is $25,000 before they start requiring appraisals. It just really depends on which company you're working with, but appraisals are not hard to get, especially like for jewelry. You can go down to a jeweler and get an appraisal done.

Speaker 2:

For items like guitars in my case. You said I could just do like a Google search and find values based on this is what they're selling for now, kind of thing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you can say hey, look, you know this, this guitar, this is what I bought it for. You can buy a similar guitar wherever you buy a guitar. This is what it would cost. Most insurance carriers are going to work with you on that. If they do require additional information, they'll let you know. Um, now, if it's like, hey, I bought this uh guitar that was played by slash, it's just probably going to be a lot more underwriting on that. But you know, for typical, maybe higher value stuff like musical instruments and all that kind of thing that's not got any kind of historical value or something like that, it's a pretty straightforward process.

Speaker 2:

So if my grandma's face gets broken, am I covered, or do I just tell her the cat did it? Is her face in your house it is Okay.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, that's that's what like. If it, if it's a genuine, like 300 year old vase that was owned by Napoleon's great grandmother, there's probably going to be a limit on. They're probably going to treat that like a regular vase in your homeowner's insurance policy, because nobody said anything about what it was or where it came from, what its value is. But if you do know, like, hey, this is a really valuable vase and we want to cover its value, you can do that. You can get a personal articles policy. If it belongs to your grandmother, you want to make sure she's named on the policy, even if it's staying at your house. But so, yeah, you can do that, you can get a policy for that kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

Very good to know, Very good to know. Well, and in my case I'll probably just tell her the cat did it All right.

Speaker 1:

Thanks a lot, Timothy.

Speaker 2:

All right man Appreciate it. Good information. We'll catch you in the next one, All right, see you then.

Speaker 1:

That's a wrap on this episode of the Walters Agency Podcast. Ready to find the right coverage for your home, business or family? Call or text 423-417-2070 for a free 20-minute consultation. Until next time, stay covered, stay protected and keep winning with the Walters Agency.