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What Is Personal Property Coverage?
Personal Personal property insurance is a type of property insurance coverage that can keep your personal belongings protected against damage from a covered loss.
Furniture
Clothing
Housewares
Household appliances
Electronics
Decorations
Personal property insurance can cover your belongings both inside and outside of your home. It can cover them anywhere in the world, but it doesn’t cover your real estate.
Your personal property coverage is an essential part of your home insurance, condo insurance or renters insurance policy.
What Does Personal Property Insurance Cover?
This coverage helps repair or replace your belongings if they’re damaged by a covered loss. For example, personal property insurance covers belongings like appliances, furniture and electronics.
What Does Personal Property Insurance Not Cover?
Personal property insurance doesn’t help cover your actual home. It also won’t cover your personal belongings if they’re damaged by a flood. You’ll need a separate flood insurance policy to stay protected in these situations.
How Much Personal Property Coverage Do I Need?
In most cases, your personal property coverage is a large part of your homeowners insurance and is usually estimated as 70% of your dwelling coverage. However, you can always customize your coverage to the estimated amount you think your belongings are worth.
To figure out the value of your personal property, start by walking around your home and estimating your big purchases. For instance, you’ll want to look at your furniture, electronics, housewares and wardrobe.
To make it easier, group each type of personal property on your list. Then, take pictures and write down how much each item costs or its value. For items like clothing, you can create one total for all of it together.
Once you have everything tallied, round to the nearest whole number to determine the amount of coverage you need. From there, you can work with your insurance company to get the right policy for you.
Writing down your personal property in a home inventory will give you peace of mind knowing that you’re prepared if an unexpected disaster happens.
The two basic personal property coverages are:
Actual cash value, which replaces your items based on what they’re worth now. This could be less than what it would cost to replace them, because the value of something like a sofa goes down over time.
Replacement cost coverage pays to purchase a new, similar item if your property is damaged or destroyed.
Replacement Cost Coverage for Your Belongings
You've worked hard for everything you have. We're here to help make sure it's protected.
Replacement Cost Coverage can insure your everyday items, like:
Clothing
Furniture
Housewares
Appliances
If these are damaged or stolen, this coverage will help to replace them.
How Replacement Cost Coverage Works
We'll pay you for the total cost it takes to restore your belongings with new items of like kind and quality, whether someone gave it to you or you bought it.
So how does the reimbursement process work? We'll first pay you the actual cash value (ACV) of your damaged property, minus your deductible. You can use this to help start repair work or replace your item all together. Once you send us a receipt for your replaced property or a signed contract showing that repairs have started, we'll send you another payment to make up the gap between ACV and your total replacement cost. This is known as recoverable depreciation.
Some examples of replacement costs for your everyday belongings are:
Examples
ORIGINAL COST
REPLACEMENT COST
$40
when gifted to you 5 years ago
$200
at today's prices
$100
when given to you 4 years ago
$290
at today's prices
$1,500
when purchased 8 years ago
$2,800
at today's prices
$450
when purchased 10 years ago
$700
at today's prices
How Can You Get Coverage?
We offer replacement cost coverage on all our owner-occupied home, condo and renter’s policies.
Want to Add This Coverage to Your Current Policy With The Hartford?
Great news! We automatically include Personal Property Replacement Cost Loss Settlement Coverage with every policy.** This ensures your personal property is protected.
**Package name and availability may vary by state and plan offered.
How Does Personal Property Coverage Work?
At the time of a loss, like a theft or fire, your personal property has a value that reflects its age and condition, known as its actual cash value. In other words, actual cash value is the depreciated value.
In contrast, replacement cost coverage reimburses you for the total cost of replacing your belongings, not just the actual cash value. This helps you buy a similar item of the same quality at today’s prices, whether you bought it or received it as a gift.
We will work with you to determine the value of the item that needs to be replaced. Once you’ve paid your home insurance deductible, we’ll reimburse you its actual cash value, which you can use towards buying your replacement. After you’ve bought the item and given us the receipt, we’ll help pay the difference.
When filing a claim for damaged items, you’ll still need to pay your deductible and we’ll ask for proof that the repair is in progress or complete. Until then, we’ll pay the loss at its actual cash value.
Does Home Insurance Cover Personal Property?
Home insurance covers personal belongings under the personal property coverage part of your policy.
Scheduled Personal Property
Personal property insurance sometimes limits coverage for more expensive items, like furs, silverware, china or crystal. You can better insure these items with scheduled personal property coverage or valuable items blanket coverage. These coverages can help increase your limit and give you an extra coverage amount for your most high value items. Scheduled personal property coverage extends your limits for one item while valuable items blanket coverage increases your limits for a category of items, like jewelry. For example, your homeowners insurance policy caps coverage for theft on jewelry at $1,500. But with valuable items blanket coverage, the limit can increase to $10,000 per item.
Get Personal Property Coverage From The Hartford
Bundling your insurance coverages can help save you money. To learn more, get a home insurance quote today.
We do all we can to help protect you and the things you own. On top of personal property insurance, you can bundle these coverages in your homeowners policy to protect you from loss:
To learn more about our products and services call us at 888-413-8970 and get an AARP® Homeowners Insurance quote from The Hartford today.1 We’ll go over any terms, conditions and coverage amounts for your policy.
Last Updated: March 15, 2023
Additional disclosures below.
More Answers to Frequently Asked Homeowners Insurance Questions
Summaries of coverages and policy features are for informational purposes only. In the event of loss, the actual terms and conditions set forth in your policy will determine your coverage.
AARP and its affiliates are not insurers. Paid endorsement. The Hartford pays royalty fees to AARP for the use of its intellectual property. These fees are used for the general purposes of AARP. AARP membership is required for Program eligibility in most states.
The AARP Auto Insurance Program from The Hartford is underwritten by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its affiliates, One Hartford Plaza, Hartford, CT 06155. It is underwritten in AZ, MI and MN by Hartford Insurance Company of the Southeast; in CA, by Hartford Underwriters Insurance Company; in WA, by Hartford Casualty Insurance Company; in MA, by Trumbull Insurance Company; and in PA, by Nutmeg Insurance Company and Twin City Fire Insurance Company. The AARP Home Insurance Program from The Hartford is underwritten by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its affiliates, One Hartford Plaza, Hartford, CT 06155. It is underwritten in AZ, MI and MN by Hartford Insurance Company of the Southeast; in CA by Property and Casualty Insurance Company of Hartford; in WA, by Trumbull Insurance Company; in MA, by Trumbull Insurance Company, Sentinel Insurance Company, Hartford Insurance Company of the Midwest, and Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company; and in PA, by Nutmeg Insurance Company. Home product is not available in all areas, including the state of FL. Savings, benefits and coverages may vary and some applicants may not qualify. The Program is currently unavailable in Canada and U.S. Territories or possessions.
1 In Texas, the Auto Program is underwritten by Redpoint County Mutual Insurance Company through Hartford of the Southeast General Agency, Inc. Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its affiliates are not financially responsible for insurance products underwritten and issued by Redpoint County Mutual Insurance Company. The Home Program is underwritten by Hartford Insurance Company of the Southeast.
* Customer reviews are collected and tabulated by The Hartford and not representative of all customers.
Personal Personal property insurance is a type of property insurance coverage that can keep your personal belongings protected against damage from a covered loss.
At the time of a loss, like a theft or fire, your personal property has a value that reflects its age and condition, known as its actual cash value. In other words, actual cash value is the depreciated value.