Valuing your possessions for home and contents insurance

Having built a life from your hard work and success, you buy insurance to protect your possessions and the items that matter to you. But effective contents insurance can’t be taken for granted. Some insurance products are really only designed to cope with certain home contents, such as the furniture and fittings found in a standard property. Other types of content insurance places restrictive limits on the amount of protection they offer for items like jewellery.

Even if you’ve bought specialist insurance, as your life changes, so does both the type and amount of protection you need. And while your policy may cope with smaller fluctuations in value, if you make major purchases or your treasured possessions rise significantly in price, valuing possessions and reviewing your insurance will be crucial to ensure that it is still suitable. 

Why Insurance valuations matter

The value of collectibles changes over time as the market for them fluctuates. If a painting sells at auction in New York for a record-breaking price, or a well-known wine expert declares a certain vintage to be the best of its kind, prices can rise sharply. High priced items including classic cars are notorious for sudden and dramatic adjustments in value. These changes can have an impact on the insurance protection you need.

Our custom Chubb evaluations: your home appraisal

When you buy insurance from Chubb, we’ll send one of our team of risk consultants to review your property and possessions. If they identify items of particular value, or very specialist items, we may ask you to get the items valued professionally.

From rare prints, rare watches or the work of a particular sculptor, we work closely with skilled and independent valuers and our experts will spend time with you discussing your valuable collections.

The benefits of valuing possessions by a professional valuation:

• Valuers of contents are experts in their fields and will give you an accurate market price for your item.
• They will advise you on how to care for your valuable possessions
• They can review the item’s provenance to check all is in order.
• You’ll receive a written report and valuation.
• Chubb will commit to an ‘agreed value’ on your item, which means in the event of a claim, you’ll receive its full value – or even more in certain circumstances.

Regular valuations of your contents matter because market prices fluctuate, Chubb recommends you have your items valued regularly. In some cases – for example, expensive items of high-end jewellery – that could be annually. By doing this, you ensure your possessions are fully protected. In some cases, valuations will identify that prices have fallen, so you may be able to reduce the amount of insurance you need.

To find out more about the benefits of evaluating your content, find our insightful article here that helps explain the importance of regularly evaluating your valuables.