Scheduling valuable items

Why the caps exist

Categories like jewellery, cash, collectibles and electronics are capped because they are small, valuable, easily stolen and hard to verify after the fact. The cap is how the policy prices that.

The result is that a policy can carry a healthy overall contents limit and still pay a fraction of what a single ring was worth, and nothing about the headline figure warns you.

The caps are on the declarations page. Reading them is a five-minute job that tells you exactly which of your things are exposed.

What scheduling changes

It does three things, and the second is the one people do not expect.

• Raises the limit for that item to an agreed figure rather than the category cap
• Usually broadens the perils — an unscheduled ring may be covered for theft but not for simply being lost, where a scheduled one commonly is
• Frequently removes the deductible for that item, so a single lost earring is a viable claim

What the insurer will want

For higher-value items, evidence of what the item is and what it is worth — a recent valuation, a receipt, or in some cases photographs and a description.

That is much easier to produce when you buy the item than when it no longer exists. Filing the receipt and a photograph at the point of purchase is the whole of the preparation required.

Valuations date. On jewellery and art in particular, an old valuation can understate what replacement now costs, and updating it is worth doing at renewal rather than at claim time.

What is usually worth scheduling

The test is simple: is the item worth more than the cap on its category, and would losing it actually hurt?

• Engagement and wedding rings, and any watch of real value
• Bicycles, which are frequently capped separately and frequently stolen
• Cameras and professional equipment, particularly where used for work
• Musical instruments
• Art, antiques and collections
• Anything inherited, which is usually both valuable and irreplaceable