Does condo insurance cover theft?

The general rule is that your condo insurance is going to cover burglary or theft from your dwelling premises so long as you maintain personal property coverage. Most condo insurance personal property coverage even covers loss of your personal property in a theft involving burglary to your automobile.

Assuming your personal property is covered, what can come to issue are exclusions or the coverage limits on what your insurer will pay in the event that a personal property theft claim is made.

Items that might be generally excluded could be cash, firearms, artwork or jewelry. These exclusions can vary from policy to policy. If any of these items are indeed insured, they’re likely to have specific coverage limits. In either case, special coverage or endorsements are probably available through your condo insurer. If you want to insure items like those, you’ll want to talk with your insurance agent. You probably don’t want actual cash value coverage for them either. Inquire about agreed value or replacement cost coverage for your particularly valuable personal property.

The most thorough way of making sure that everything inside of your condo is insured for theft or damage is to make a full and complete inventory of all your personal property inside of it. Then place an estimated value next to the inventoried items. You’re likely to be surprised with how much you have and its aggregate value. Total up your estimates and compare that total with the amount of your present personal property coverage. That comparison will probably prompt you to think about boosting your personal property coverage. In the event of a total loss, you might even be able to refer to your inventory when you file your personal property claim.

Talk to your agent about actual cash value as opposed to agreed upon value or replacement cost for those particularly valuable pieces of personal property. Take that inventory with estimates, and then compare your estimates against your personal property coverage amount. You’re probably going to want to increase your coverage. You’ll be surprised how inexpensive that can be.