As Valentine’s Day draws near, people's thoughts tend to drift toward romantic things - fancy dinners out, chocolate, flowers, and jewelry. The dinners, chocolate, and flowers are straightforward - the dinners and chocolates are consumable, and the flowers, while lovely, will only last a week or two. But diamonds are forever, as are other gemstones. But jewelry is also on the expensive side, even if you’re buying lab created stones, and therefore should be insured. But it’s already covered by my homeowners or tenant policy, right? Well, sort of.

The standard home, condo, or tenant policy provides a limited amount of jewelry coverage. The standard homeowners policy provides $2,000 for loss by theft of jewelry, watches, furs, and precious and semiprecious stones. That’s not a lot of coverage if you have even a few pieces of nice, not even really expensive, jewelry. Okay, but that’s just for theft. The comprehensive policy is a little broader and provides $2,000 for loss by theft, misplacement, or loss of jewelry, watches, furs, and precious and semiprecious stones. What about if my jewelry is damaged in a house fire or something, that’s covered, right? Again, sort of.