What Does a Personal Floaters Policy Cover?
It adds coverage for specific valuables, like jewelry or art, above your policy's limits, insured for their full appraised value.
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Your homeowners policy already pays for stolen belongings under its personal property coverage, but it caps certain categories low, often around $1,500 to $2,000 total for jewelry no matter what any single piece is worth. A floater, also called a scheduled personal property endorsement, lists an item by itself with its own insured value, so a $10,000 ring is covered for $10,000, not folded into that shared cap. To add one, you typically need a recent appraisal or receipt, and your declarations page will show whether anything is already scheduled.
If a ring, watch or heirloom is worth more than a couple thousand dollars, that shared cap is the number that matters after a break-in, not the price tag. Comparing policies now means checking how that base jewelry limit and the cost to schedule items over it differ between insurers, since both vary and neither shows up until you look.
What does it take to actually schedule an item?
Most insurers want a recent appraisal for anything valuable, usually dated within the last year or two for items like jewelry that can shift in value. A sales receipt works for newer purchases, especially if the item was bought recently and the price is clearly documented. For something inherited or bought long ago with no paperwork, a jeweler or appraiser can write one up for a fee, and that document becomes part of your policy file going forward.
The appraisal needs to describe the item specifically. A ring's metal, carat weight, cut and any identifying marks, not just 'gold ring with diamond.' Vague descriptions cause problems later if you ever need to prove what was actually lost or stolen. Photos help too, though they usually supplement an appraisal rather than replace one. Keep a copy of everything somewhere other than the house itself, since the whole point is protection if the house is broken into or damaged.
After a theft, proving ownership matters as much as proving value. An appraisal says what the item was worth, but a police report, photos, or even old photos showing you or a family member wearing the piece help establish that you owned it. Insurers investigating a claim for a scheduled item will usually ask for the original appraisal plus anything else tying the item to your household before the loss. Without that paperwork, a claim can stall even when the coverage itself isn't in question.
Scheduling isn't only for rings and watches. Fine art, musical instruments, furs, and collections like coins or stamps often fall under the same low category caps in a standard policy and can be scheduled the same way. Some insurers offer blanket scheduling for a group of similar items under one combined limit instead of listing each piece separately, which can simplify things if several items fall under the same value range. Whether that option exists, and what it costs, depends on the insurer, so it's worth asking about directly rather than assuming a blanket option is standard.
What happens to cash, firearms or electronics stolen from the house?
Cash sits in its own small category, and it stays small even with a floater. Most homeowners policies cap cash theft somewhere around $200, and that figure rarely moves much even if you schedule other valuables. Scheduling is built for identifiable items with a provable value, not currency. If a break-in involves cash loss, that low cap is usually the end of it. Keeping large sums at home isn't something a floater is meant to fix.
Firearms and electronics work differently from jewelry. Guns often have their own sub-limit, separate from the general jewelry cap, and it can be low enough that a modest gun collection exceeds it without anyone realizing until a claim is filed. Electronics like laptops, cameras and home theater equipment usually fall under the general personal property limit rather than a special category. A single stolen laptop is less likely to run into a cap problem than several high-end items stolen together. Checking your declarations page for a firearms sub-limit is worth doing even if scheduling jewelry was the original reason you looked.
Receipts matter more than people expect for this kind of claim. An electronics claim without proof of purchase can still be paid, but the insurer may base the payout on a lower estimated value rather than what was actually paid, especially for older items. Serial numbers help too, particularly for firearms and higher-end electronics, since they tie a specific item to a specific loss in a way a generic description doesn't. A photo of the item in the house, even an incidental one from a holiday or a home video, can support a claim when nothing else does.
None of this requires scheduling the way jewelry does. Scheduling is for items whose value needs to be locked in ahead of time because a standard cap would badly shortchange them. For cash, firearms and electronics, the more useful habit is keeping records. Receipts, serial numbers, photos, kept somewhere other than the house, mean that if a theft happens, proving what was lost isn't left to memory.
Before you compare
Pull your declarations page and check the jewelry cap and any firearms sub-limit. If an item is worth more than that, find or get an appraisal now, not after it's gone.
