What to Do if Someone Steals Your Belongings
File a police report, then file a claim. Personal property coverage pays to replace stolen items, minus your deductible.
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What your claim actually covers
Personal property coverage applies whether the theft happened at home, from your car, or on a trip. It pays based on the coverage limit listed on your declarations page, usually a percentage of your dwelling coverage, minus your deductible. Inside that total, categories like jewelry, cash, watches, and firearms carry their own much smaller caps, often a few thousand dollars combined, regardless of what the full items were worth. That's where a theft claim falls short for people who assumed everything was covered equally. If you own jewelry or other valuables worth more than that sublimit, scheduling them separately on your policy removes the cap. For proving what you owned, photos, receipts, and appraisals from before the theft matter more than anything you write afterward, so that record is worth building now.
A diamond ring alone can clear a jewelry sublimit of a few thousand dollars. Whatever your policy doesn't cover comes out of your pocket, and sublimits vary a lot between insurers, as do the rates for scheduling valuables separately. Checking policies now, before a theft happens, shows which ones leave less of a gap for what you actually own.
What happens after you file the claim
An adjuster will ask for a list of what was taken, an estimated value for each item, and whatever proof you have that you owned it. This is where the photos and receipts mentioned earlier get used. Without them, the adjuster may rely on your description alone, or ask for more time to verify an item's value, which slows down the payout. A stolen laptop is easy to price. A collection of watches built up over fifteen years is not, unless you documented it.
Most policies pay in two steps. First you get the actual cash value of what was stolen, which factors in depreciation, meaning an item's age and wear reduce what it's worth. Once you've bought a replacement and shown the receipt, the insurer pays the difference up to your coverage limit, assuming your policy includes replacement cost coverage rather than actual cash value only. Check your declarations page for which one you have, since it changes what a stolen item is actually worth to you on paper.
Cash is treated differently from physical belongings. Most policies cap stolen cash at a few hundred dollars no matter the circumstances, since cash can't be verified the way a serial number or receipt can. If someone broke in and took cash sitting in a drawer, that sublimit applies in full, separate from the jewelry or electronics caps mentioned earlier.
A theft away from home, like a break-in at a vacation rental or a bag stolen from a car, is usually covered under the same personal property limit as your house, though some policies cap off-premises theft at a lower percentage of your total coverage. If you travel with a laptop, camera gear, or jewelry regularly, it's worth checking whether your policy treats theft away from home any differently, since that's a detail easy to miss until it's the reason a claim comes up short.
What to do in the first few days after a theft
Call the police before calling the insurer. A police report creates an official record of what happened and when. Most insurers also require one before they'll process a theft claim at all. File it even if you don't expect the items to be recovered. The report number will be one of the first things the claim process asks for.
Walk through the house and write down everything missing before you start tidying up or replacing anything. Memory fades fast, and people routinely forget a second item once they've focused on the obvious one, like remembering the stolen laptop but not the watch that was in the same drawer. If you have the photos or receipts mentioned earlier, pull them together now rather than when the adjuster asks. If you don't, start reconstructing value through old credit card statements, emails confirming a purchase, or photos where the item happens to appear in the background.
Don't throw out damaged property connected to the break-in, like a broken door or a forced window, until the adjuster has had a chance to see it or you've photographed it clearly. Insurers sometimes cover the cost of fixing the point of entry under a different part of the policy than the stolen items themselves. That's easy to miss if the repair happens before the claim is filed.
Report the theft to the insurer as soon as the police report exists, even if you're still finding out what's missing. Most policies set a window for reporting a loss, and starting the claim early gives room to add items as you find them rather than filing twice. If cards, a passport, or a phone were stolen along with physical belongings, canceling or freezing those is separate from the insurance claim but worth doing the same day. It has nothing to do with waiting on an adjuster.
Before anything happens
Pull up your declarations page and check your jewelry and cash sublimits against what you actually own. If a ring, a watch, or a collection would clear that limit, scheduling it now is what closes the gap.
