NEW HOME News and Question about Insurance

[tberube]

First of all, my fiance and I are buying our first home together!! We signed the Purchase and Sales agreement right after I left the Boston area GTG yesterday afternoon (sorry ladies - I hated to leave but the new home was calling!). We are set to close at the end of January and move in slowly through the month of February. So excited.

So because we''re moving from an apartment to a home, we''ll be changing over to homeowner''s insurance. I currently have my engagement ring insured as a rider on my renter''s insurance, and could theoretically just insure my jewelry on my homeowner''s. But I have been reading about insurance policies that are exclusive to jewelry (which before PS I was told didn''t exist), and would love to know the pros and cons of doing it that way.

Is it more expensive than adding it as a rider?
Does it cover more, or the same?
Who uses these companies and what is your experience with it?

Thanks in advance for your sound advice.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

I have a separate policy though the company that does all of my other ins., which works for me. I don''t know anything about Chubb or Jeweler''s Mutal, but I''m sure you''ll have other responses soon. But, I just wanted to say congrats on your new house!!!

 

[tberube]

Thank you, Hudson!! I''m very excited!

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Congrats on the house! So exciting!

I have my ring insured through Liberty Mutual, and they have all of my other policies. It''s incredibly affordable.

 

[Jypsie]

No advice on the question - but I had to come tip-toe through this thread and congratulate you on the new home!! I can''t wait to see pics - and don''t forget the pic of the new pup in the new yard!!

 

[BigDiamonds]

Congratulations on your house! I will try to answer some of your insurance questions -

Stand alone jewelry policies are usually more expensive than a homeowner''s rider. It varies based on where you live, but I pay a $1.60 rate per $100 of coverage on my ring with Chubb (so for a $10,000 ring, you pay $160 per year.) The primary reason that people choose to buy stand-alone jewelry policies is for the claims settlement provisions that you can get. On a homeowner''s policy, the insurance company usually gets to replace your ring with a "like and kind" replacement, and they get to decide what "like and kind" is. As we all know, not all 1 ct F/VS1 stones are created equal, so that is where you can run into hassles. How claims are handled varies from company to company, so it''s worth checking into how yours works. Some of them are quite good and will give you a credit at the jeweler of your choice. My word of advice to you, however, is to call your agent and ask for a specimen policy form that includes claims settlement provisions. My experience with insurance agents is that they are alarmingly uneducated about these types of things, and you don''t want a discrepancy at claim time.

The big appeal to Chubb is that they will write you a check for the insured amount in the event of a loss. So if you have your ring insured for $10,000, you get a check for $10,000 without any hassles. You can go out and buy the same thing again, or you can buy something totally different. You can even keep the cash. This is very appealing to PSers who may have spent months obsessing over their ring and don''t want some schmo from the insurance company choosing their replacement. Stand-alone Chubb policies are available through Touchstone with a minimum insured value of $10,000.

Touchstone also sells a product called GemShield. I don''t know too much about it, but my understanding is that it works similar to Chubb (straight pay out), but they pay your jeweler and then you work with them on a replacement. When I looked at it, it wasn''t that much less expensive than Chubb, so I went for cash out.

My only other piece of advice is that you can often get away with a homeowner''s rider if you have a good, thorough appraisal. If you obtain an independent appraisal with all the details of your ring (dimensions of your stone, cut characteristics, designer of the setting, etc.), there is little more for discrepancy during a normal claims settlement. This way, you invest in an appraisal once and you save on your insurance every year.

Hope that helps!

 

[tberube]

Thanks for all the info, BigDiamonds, it''s a big help. You mentioned that Chubb is for insuring things $10,000 or more - but the appraisal on my jewelry may not reach that. If I wante to use them, would I just overinsure?

 

[tberube]

Date: 12/30/2007 2:59:53 PM
Author: Jypsie
No advice on the question - but I had to come tip-toe through this thread and congratulate you on the new home!! I can''t wait to see pics - and don''t forget the pic of the new pup in the new yard!!

Jypsie, you''re a total sweetheart! Here I was, hijacking your new house thread with mine, and you still make time to come over and congratulate me! Haha...

Below is the pic of the front of the house, taken by the realtor in the fall. I was hesitating at showing pics because the house is so much prettier in real life! It''s a nice warm tan with a pretty burgundy on the shutters. OH - it''s a condex, by the way. Training wheels!!

It''s a nice, 1300 square foot home with 1.5 baths, huge living room, dining room and kitchen (both with hardwood floors), 2 bedrooms, fenced in yard, new deck, and a huge basement (which was a big need for us, FI is a sculptor and needs a studio). All new windows, new roof, new water heater. Pretty modernized, too. Price was reduced just before we saw it.

 

[tberube]

I decided to throw in a pic of the dining room, because I just love that hardwood floor (real wood, too) - please note that the decor here belongs to the seller, and wouldn''t be how I''d decorate...or the color I''d paint.

 

[Selkie]

I''m a little late to this, but congratulations on your first house! It looks super cute. When do you move in??

 

[rainydaze]

congratulations on your new home tberube!! it looks lovely in that picture, and since you said it''s not that good, i can only imagine how warm it is in person. best wishes!

the only thing i can add about the insurance was that jewelers mutual was very informative and helpful, whereas my homeowners (for a rider) had no clue and any time i inquired along this route, they got somewhat flustered and irritated and i never could get a straight firm answer as to the type of coverage and policy (forget about getting something in writing. THAT was a joke). my DH really wanted to go the rider route so we did that for now but i''m trying to keep the discussion open beause i really just have little confidence in their coverage. hopefully nothing will ever happen to my ring!!

 

[jcrow]

congratulations on your new home!!!!! so exciting isn''t it?!

when i got engaged, i wanted to insure it through chubb because of their cash policy that BigDiamonds explained. however, due to katrina & rita, chubb wasn''t allowed to write any new policies in our area. so, i turned to state farm which is who our house, cars, etc. are insured with. they were pretty clueless when it came time to answering my questions regarding what if scenarios. they just kept saying they''d replace it with something comparable from a jeweler in our area. and i kept saying that my branded diamond isn''t available in our state. anyway long story short, as soon as chubb started insuring our state i canceled the state farm policy and went over to chubb.

 

[aljdewey]

TB.......there are many local insurance options that will offer cash-out policies for jewelry riders. The rates BD posted are pretty consistent with what I found four years ago; replacement/like-kind policies were running 1.15 per $100 and cash-out was running about $1.70 per $100.

When I was a renter, I was able to get an agreed-amount policy with Cambridge Mutual. When I did this, I actually had to tell the insurance agents what that was and what I wanted. Several of them weren''t even aware it was available until I said I knew some companies write them, and then they came back saying ''yeah, you''re right, they do!".

When we bought our house, our ins. agent recommend Safety Insurance because they offered general hazard (homeowner''s) insurance AND they also would provide agreed-amount/agreed-value coverage for $1.50 per $100.

Since you''re in the same area I''m in, let me know if you need a way to get contact info for them and I''ll get it for you.

 

[glamourgirl]

Hey there just thought I'd chime in since I'm in the insurance business. Sorry to hear about your experience with State Farm jcrow. I work for and SF agent here in Hawaii and I swear we don't talk like that at all to policyholders. I hear so many horror stories when it comes to insurance companies that I take the time to educate my policyholders since things like insurance are things everyone should know about. I insure engagment rings all the time. State Farm has a policy called the "Personal Articles Policy" this specifically lists what you want to insure. This is what we use to insure things ranging from high price jewelery items, fine arts, antiques, etc. This coverage also gives you protection anywhere in the world so its pretty broad. Just to add I have this myself and my engagement ring is insured for a little over $14K for about $19 a month with no deductible...and even though I work for SF we don't get discounts. I believe that it really depends on the agent that you have because I've had to transfer many policies from other states to Hawaii and sometimes I can't believe I'm talking to people in the same industry. I think more than anything there are just training issues unfortunately. I'm only licensed in Hawaii so I don't know about the laws in other states but a personal articles is something I believe in. For our homeowner policies it doesn't give better protection. For example a homeowner policy can have a jewelry endorsement but only cover 2500 per item 5000 max an occurence. Hope this helps any.

 

[~*Alexis*~]

good to know...maybe I will have to take a look at my homeowners insurance and get some more clarification on what is covered and what is not. I dont have uch but what I do have I do not want lost thats for sure...thanks for the info....