Condominiums are designed to provide peace of mind living, but be aware that not everything is covered by your condo fees or the condominium association’s insurance.
The condo association will have an insurance policy that covers the building, common elements, and possibly some features within your condo unit, but not everything.
You are responsible to insure your personal property (called contents insurance), as well as any improvements or betterments made over and above the standard condo unit. Condo unit owners need to have a condo insurance policy to protect their personal contents, as well as any additions or alterations to their condo unit.
How to calculate the value of my personal contents?
Condominiums are designed to provide peace of mind living, but be aware that not everything is covered by your condo fees or the condominium association’s insurance.
The condo association will have an insurance policy that covers the building, common elements, and possibly some features within your condo unit, but not everything.
You are responsible to insure your personal property (called contents insurance), as well as any improvements or betterments made over and above the standard condo unit. Condo unit owners need to have a condo insurance policy to protect their personal contents, as well as any additions or alterations to their condo unit.
You will need to determine the estimated value of your personal contents for your condo insurance policy, and you will want to make sure you have enough insurance coverage. Many individuals tend to underinsure as they underestimate the quantity and quality of their personal items – a valuation should be calculated on a replacement cost basis with current market values.
When determining the value of items in your condo unit, consider the following examples of personal property items:
- Clothing and shoes
- Appliances (small & large)
- Everyday food, pots, pans, dishes
- Towels, linens
- Electronics
- Furniture, lamps, area rugs
- Personal care items
- Hobby items
- Books
- Items in a storage locker
You may need to make special considerations for personal property that have special limits of insurance and may need to be protected separately under multiple condo insurance policies.
Specialty items
If your specialty items are very high in value, it’s recommended that you keep the bill of sale and have them appraised every few years. This will make the recovery and the value determination of the object easier should any incident occur. Specialty items include jewelry, furs, art, watercraft, stamps etc.
Bicycles
If your bicycle is more costly than average or has enhancements, then you should consider getting additional contents insurance to ensure proper coverage.
When assessing the value of your personal items
It is a good idea to keep an inventory of your personal property in each room handy, this can be in the form of an electronic list, photographs or video camera footage. Ideally, these records should be stored somewhere safe should the unexpected to your condominium unit occur.
Setting an estimated value for betterments and improvements in your condo unit can be another tricky task. You are responsible to insure any condo upgrades over a standard condo unit, even if a previous owner did the upgrade.
We recommend that you talk to an expert condo insurance broker to ensure your condo unit owner insurance is accurately tailored to meet your individual condo unit insurance needs.
Call your Condo Gold insurance broker today, and let us put the peace of mind back into your condo insurance!