Understanding theft insurance: things you need to do to protect the contents of your home
Not all home insurance premiums are comprehensive. Some of them tend to be very specific, like theft insurance. Theft insurance is available for both landowners and tenants. Usually, landowners are liable for furnishings that come with the rented home. Tenants, on the other hand, can avail of tenant insurance policies to protect their valuables from getting lost while they’re living in the rented home.
Whatever the case, theft insurance covers the replacement cost of lost properties due to robbery. Of course, the tenant or homeowner will have to prove that s/he had no part in the said incident. Theft insurance claims are usually easy to make if proper documentation of all insurable items were done.
Shopping for cheap theft insurance policies
There is no standard price for theft insurance policies. You should shop around for the cheapest and most stable insurance premium for your circumstances. The coverages of these theft insurance policies also vary from one insurance company to another.
You can either contact a bank directly and ask them for home theft insurance deals, or go through as broker to get a broader survey of insurance deals across your state. It’ll cost you practically the same sum of money either way. Although you will most likely be paying fees for the broker’s services, s/he can get discounts from insurance companies simply by bringing in bulk clients.
When you’re dealing with brokers, though, remember that they’re not totally speaking for your sake. They’re also protecting their own commissions. Make sure that you do your own private research too, to support the claims that your insurance broker is making.
Documentations
Of course, your theft insurance is pretty useless unless you were able to keep clear and detailed documentation of all your valued possessions. Back in the days, it used to be good enough for people to keep detailed lists of their artifact. Today, with the rising technology, we need to update our evidences as well.
Certain insurance companies may ask for photographs or videos of all your artifacts. Depending on your theft insurance policy, these documented artifacts should also be listed and described in writing.
To protect these records from theft and/or other disasters that may incur damages to your home and its contents, make sure that you keep them inside a safe inside your home or inside a bank.
Actual cash value (ACV) versus replacement cost
The insurance company may compensate for you loss by giving you as much as the original value of your artifact, or opt to pay up for your lost item by giving you it’s actual cash value.
With the ACV, you get the original monetary value of the item you lost due to home theft minus its depreciation value. A theft insurance policy which makes use of replacement cost, on the other hand, compensates for your loss without deducting any value for depreciation.