This holiday season is many things, a time for family, a time for reflection, a time for giving. All of these things are a major reason why insurance exists at all. So its not surprise that the holiday season is one of the most important times to ensure that you are carrying proper coverage for not only all of the people you care for the most but also those things that you give to them this time to year to show you care. While we will briefly touch on life insurance as a gift for those closest to you today, we will mainly be talking about more conventional gift ideas. Things that come in to hundreds of thousands of homes every year at this time. However most people are unaware at a large number of these gifts are in fact not covered under their normal home policy. Obviously I don’t mean your little boy or girls new Peppa Pig toy or anything like that. What we will be talking about today are higher priced gifts. New jewelry, cars, musical instruments, antiques, furs, art, medical equipment, firearms, cameras and other high end electronics, among other things.
As with most insurance related topics the best first step you can take is always a conversation with your agent. This can help you to better understand what higher end items you own may be covered under your current property insurance and what items may need additional coverage. While property insurance in general is a good start to cover the items in your home as time goes on and you accumulate more important, high end possessions you will begin to need to look into additional coverage for these items. While most Home and Renters
Policies do offer limited coverage for high end items, it is very important to understand exactly where that coverage ends and you’r need for new coverage begins. Fortunately your agent can quickly help you assess your needs.
Typically when you pick up your home coverage you agent will ask what valuable items you have in your home. What makes an item valuable? Obviously we have many items that hold tremendous sentimental value, especially gifts we receive during the holiday season. Luckily for us sentimental value is something you cannot put a dollar amount on. Therefore the only items we are interested in for Insurance purposes are high priced items such as,
Fine Jewelry
Firearms
Electronics
High end cameras
Medical devices
Furs
High priced art
High end wine or spirts
Coin or stamp collections
Musical instruments
Sporting equipment
Fine china or flatware
While this can all seem very overwhelming, especially during the holiday season there are some pretty easy steps you can take to ensure all the things that have just come into your home and the things that have been there for awhile have the coverage needed incase anything were to happen. First you should make a home inventory of all the items you have that may fall into this category, ensure that you take note of things like serial numbers, year they were produced as well as any additional information that is specific to the item. Next get the items appraised by a reputable appraiser. If you have questions about whom to get ahold of regarding this your agent should be able to help you find someone. Lastly ask your agent about getting endorsements for these items and make sure you are asking your agent to insure these items for the replacement cost instead of the cash value of the item. This ensures that no matter what happens to these items you are able to replace them if the situations calls for it.
While it is certainly important to ensure that the new high priced items that come into your home this holiday season have the appropriate coverage incase of any unforeseen circumstances, the most important thing to remember this holiday season to enjoy your time with those that you love. Im sure no one would argue that the time we spend with our family is the most important part of our holiday season. Making memories while we can is one of the most important things we do in our life, however ensuring that the people we care about most this holiday season are able to continue making happy memories when we are gone is arguably even more important. It’s no surprise that some of the hardest holiday seasons we will have in our lives are the first years someone we care about are no longer here to spend those holiday seasons with us. However we can continue to let our families know that these times were important to us and that we want them to continue having great times by ensuring that we leave something behind.
It’s easy to think of a life insurance policy as just a lump sum payment of money. But it’s important to take the future into consideration during the holiday season. People rely on us to ensure that each and every holiday is a memorable enjoyable time for family to gather. Leaving an adequate life insurance policy for your family when your no longer with them will be able to help make sure that the times you cherished so much with your family when you were here are able to continue for those you cared most for when your gone! So if you haven’t already had the life insurance conversation with your insurance agent, perhaps this holiday season its finally time to break the ice!
