Partly, and usually for far less than you would expect. Every home, condo and tenant policy carries a special limit on jewellery, watches and furs — commonly somewhere in the five to ten thousand dollar range for the whole household, with a smaller cap per item. On many wordings that limit applies specifically to theft and mysterious disappearance. If what you own exceeds the cap, the excess simply is not insured until it is scheduled. Closing that gap is what jewellery insurance does.

Jewellery insurance is rated against the value you schedule rather than charged as a flat fee, so a five-thousand-dollar ring costs a small fraction of what a fifty-thousand-dollar collection does. Jewellery and watches rate higher than art or antiques because they leave the house, and security credits — a monitored alarm, a safe, a safety deposit box — pull the number down. As an independent brokerage we can price a schedule against several markets in one exercise, and the answer is usually lower than clients expect.

Scheduling lists each item individually with its own value, which is what you want for anything individually significant — an engagement ring, a named work, a specific watch. Blanket coverage gives a collection one overall limit with a per-item cap inside it and no requirement to list every piece, which suits collections that change constantly or run to hundreds of items. Many jewellery insurance schedules end up carrying both.

Not always. Most markets will schedule modest items on a description and a stated value, and some specialty markets set that threshold high enough that an appraisal is only required on genuinely significant pieces. Where an appraisal is required it needs to be a real one: full description, basis of value, date, confirmation the appraiser examined the item, and the appraiser’s credentials. A sales receipt is not an appraisal, and no jewellery insurance schedule should be built on one.

For jewellery insurance the working convention is every two to three years for jewellery and watches and every three to five for art and antiques, and sooner when a market has moved sharply. Gold has roughly doubled in Canadian dollars since 2020, which has left a great many older schedules badly short. Lab-grown diamond values have gone the other way, which leaves some clients paying premium on a figure the stone no longer supports.

On a scheduled item, generally yes — that is mysterious disappearance, and it is one of the main reasons scheduling exists. Under the ordinary contents section of a home policy it is frequently excluded, and where it is covered it is capped and subject to your deductible. Losing a ring without any theft involved is the single most common jewellery insurance claim we see.

Jewellery insurance follows you: scheduled items are generally insured worldwide, on the wrist, in the hotel safe and in transit. What travels with them is any security condition attached to the cover, so if the schedule was written on the basis that certain pieces live in a safe or a safety deposit box, taking them abroad is a conversation to have first.

Agreed value means the amount on the schedule is the amount paid on a total loss, with no deduction for depreciation and no requirement that you prove what the item was worth after it has gone. Without it, settlement turns on what the insurer decides the piece was worth on the day — which is exactly the argument nobody wants to be having while replacing an heirloom. It is the single most valuable feature of a jewellery insurance schedule.

No. Every jewellery insurance form excludes wear and tear, gradual deterioration and mechanical breakdown, so routine servicing, a worn setting or a stone that works loose over years of wear are maintenance rather than insured losses. Sudden accidental damage is a different matter and is generally covered on a scheduled item. If a setting is worn, the time to deal with it is before the stone is gone.

Yes. Blanket jewellery insurance covers a collection under one limit with a per-item cap inside it, which is how most large collections are handled. What the insurer will want instead of an item list is an inventory you maintain, with provenance and condition for wine, grading and authentication certificates for cards and comics, and photographs throughout. The documentation is doing the work the schedule would otherwise do.

Several specialty markets carry a market-value provision that pays above the scheduled figure — commonly up to one and a half times it — where the value has risen and you take replacement rather than cash. It is a genuine backstop, but it is not a substitute for updating the schedule, and it does not exist on every form. The reliable answer is a current appraisal on a current jewellery insurance schedule.