Last Updated May 2025

Personal property insurance coverage can help you repair or replace your belongings if they’re stolen or damaged in a covered event. It’s a standard part of homeowners insurance, condo insurance and renters insurance. How it works depends on choices you make.

How does personal property insurance work? 

Take the example of a kitchen fire, a common peril typically covered by home insurance. 

You can file a claim under personal property insurance coverage to help with the cost of repairing or replacing your damaged kitchen items up to the limit you’ve chosen. 

What’s covered: Belongings ruined in the fire — your kitchenware, pots and pans, small appliances, kitchen furniture, a laptop you had on the counter, anything that you own but isn’t part of, or permanently attached to, the structure.  

What’s not covered:  Personal property coverage won’t cover your floor, walls, built-in cabinets and appliances or anything else that’s structural. All that falls under your dwelling coverage. 

Know your limits: Many policies come with special limits for high-value items. For example, you might have $100,000 of personal property coverage, but only $1,000 of that would be available to cover any one piece of jewelry. So if your $5,000 wedding ring was on the kitchen counter and was ruined in the fire, it would be covered only up to $1,000. You can add more coverage for high-value items if you want. 

What happens next:  The claim will take into account the value of your damaged belongings, as well as the coverage limits you’ve chosen, and any applicable special limits. Once your claim is approved, your insurance should cover the repairs, up to the applicable limits, less any deductible.

Personal property coverage also doesn’t cover your personal liability for bodily injuries or property damage to someone else that you are legally responsible for — but personal liability coverage could. That’s true whether you have homeowners, renters or condo insurance that includes liability coverage.

How do I file a claim under my personal property insurance?

Here’s how it works at Farmers^®.

	File your claim online or call a claims representative. Answer a few simple questions to get started. Take steps to prevent further damage if needed and keep a record of any associated expenses.
	Your claim is reviewed by a claims representative, who will reach out to talk through the events in more detail. We will also explain your coverages and the next steps.
	Track and manage your claim online.
	We pay to cover the actual cash value of your belongings, or for their repair or replacement, up to the applicable limits, less any deductible.
	We close your claim.

How much personal property coverage do I need?

The key to figuring out how much coverage you need — whether you live in a house, condo or apartment — is adding up the value of your personal property. Make an inventory by listing everything: Furniture, kitchenware, electronics and computers, tools, jewelry, sports equipment, clothing, appliances, linens. Then assign a value to each item and consider adding photos.  

Because making an inventory of all your belongings can be very time consuming, many homeowners policies default to providing enough personal property coverage to satisfy many households. If your home policy already includes $200,000 of personal property coverage, you might do a quick estimate and decide whether that’s adequate without making a detailed inventory of everything. 

It can make a future claim go more smoothly if your inventory lists information about valuable items, such as: 

• Make, model and serial number  
• How much you paid for it 
• When you bought it 
• Its current value 

Of course, nobody expects you to inventory every item — your insurer expects you to own a reasonable number of socks without having to document them all. 

Once you know the full estimated value of what you want to insure, it’s easier to pick a coverage level. An agent can help you determine if sub-limits exist on specific items or categories of property, and help as you decide whether you want additional coverage for them.

Types of personal property coverage

There are two main types of personal property coverage in a home, condo or renters insurance policy.

Actual cash value. This coverage pays you an amount equal to the replacement value of damaged property minus depreciation.

Example: Your laptop is stolen. A new laptop would cost $2,000, but yours is two years old. Your policy would value it at $2,000 minus depreciation for its age, minus your deductible.

Replacement cost coverage. This coverage pays you the dollar amount needed to replace your belongings without any deduction for depreciation.

Example: Fire damages your couch beyond repair. It would cost $5,000 to replace your couch with a comparable one. You could be paid $5,000 minus your deductible.

When you buy your personal property insurance, you can decide which type of coverage you want. Typically, actual cash value coverage will cost less than replacement cost coverage. Both are subject to the limits and deductible you choose.

For certain kinds of property, like jewelry, watercraft or coins, there may be a maximum amount your policy will pay for each item, or for the total of that type of items. For example, your policy might pay no more than $200 for any one collectible comic book, and no more than $1,500 for all comic books combined. You can add extra coverage for high-value items.