Personal property floaters can be purchased as an addition to your homeowners insurance policy. It can give additional coverage for your personal property, just like what endorsements do.
What is a personal property or insurance floaters?
It is a type of insurance policy that covers a specific type of personal property. These personal properties are items that can be easily moved or transported, such as a piece of artwork or jewelry. Since these types of items are more likely to be stolen or damaged, insurance floaters can be used to cover it. It expands your coverage from specified perils or named perils, and coverage to all risk or open perils.
Coverage to open perils will protect your property from all types of damages and losses that aren’t excluded in your home insurance policy. Floaters can be added in both home and commercial insurance policies.
What items can it cover?
Personal property floaters cover the following items:
- Jewelry – It’s given more consideration than other personal belongings. An item needs an appraisal if it’s priced over $1,000.
- Fine arts – These includes antique furniture, paintings, private painting collections, manuscripts, books, sculptures, pictures, lithographs, and others. If a loss occurs, payment will be made for the insurance amount written for that particular item since fine arts are insured on a valued basis.
- Coin, stamp, and other collectibles – These can be insured either on a blanket or on a scheduled basis. It includes comics, baseball cards, and postage stamps.
- Sports equipment – Tennis, golf, and surfing equipment that are used by non-professionals can be covered.
- Cameras – Included items in this category are telescopes, projectors, films, binoculars, and motion picture recording equipment. If you’re using these for professional purposes, it will not be covered.
- Furs – Items with fur such as fur coats, imitation fur, and garments trimmed with fur are all covered.
- Musical instruments – Electronics, guitars, pianos, and other types of musical instruments are covered; however, these items should be used by you personally and not for professional purposes.
Updating your floater policies are very important, so make sure to revisit it every two or three years to keep the value of your personal items up-to-date. You can also add new floater policies for items that you want to give as holiday or birthday gifts.
Benefits of personal property floaters
The advantages of adding personal property floaters are listed below:
- All the risks and damages are covered, not just named perils.
- You can increase the limits of your coverage for various categories of personal property.
- Your personal properties are still covered even if it’s outside your home.
The only disadvantage of personal property floaters is that it will increase the rate of your home insurance premium.
Final Thoughts
Floaters are very useful, however, you have to purchase a floater for each item that has a specific value. You will be required to secure a certified appraisal if your items are highly valuable so that the insurance company will agree on its replacement value. This may seem inconvenient but when you file a claim, it will save you a lot of hassle.
