Do I need jewelry insurance?
The short answer is that I can't answer that question for you!
Whether or not you need jewelry insurance is totally a personal decision based on your individual level of risk aversion.
Generally I recommend that if a piece will cost more than $3,000 to replace, an insurance appraisal and policy is "worth it". However, this is just an arbitrary number that I've found most people are comfortable with - this threshold is individual and can be whatever number you want. If you feel that a replacement cost of $2,000 warrants an insurance appraisal and insurance, great! If you don't feel that anything under $5,000 would be worth appraising and insuring, that's great too!
There are several things to consider to parse out your feelings on this - consider your answers to the below questions:
- Are you wearing the piece of jewelry a lot?
- Will it make you feel more comfortable when wearing it if you know it is insured?
- Did you invest your own money in to this piece or was it inherited? Does that change how you would feel about loss or theft of the piece?
- Are you storing your jewelry somewhere secure?
- What does your insurance company cover with and without an appraisal? Will they cover an individual item if it's under a certain dollar amount without an appraisal?
The main thing is to weigh the answers to those questions against the initial cost of the appraisal, plus the annual premium that your insurance company will charge you, and decide for yourself if it is "worth it" or not.
I am happy to discuss your individual situation further over the phone, I know this can be a daunting process. When I perform an appraisal, I like to ensure that I'm a good value for my clients, so I tend to talk through these points and make sure we are appraising only the things that really warrant an appraisal.