How do insurance companies calculate personal property coverage Scott MacLaughlin asked 2 years ago
How do insurance companies calculate personal property coverage

We lost our home in the Marshall Wildland Fire and have USAA insurance. We are underinsured on our dwelling by $1,000,000. Rebuild cost is $1.6M and we were insured for a total of $588,000. We are also underinsured on our personal property coverage. Actual personal property is $765,246 and we are insured for $365,250. Because USAA undervalued our home, we believe they also undervalued our personal property. Is there a typical percentage insurance companies (or more specifically USAA) use to calculate personal property from the dwelling estimate? For example in our case, our personal property insurance is 62% of our dwelling insurance.

Thanks, Scott MacLaughlin

1 Answers
Katie Goodrich Katie Goodrich Expert answered 2 years ago
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Hi Scott,

There is no strict rule for the personal property limit. I’d say that most of the USAA policies I’ve seen have the personal property limit set to 50% of the dwelling limit. I’ve also seen policies where the limit is as low as 10% and as high as 75%. If you have an agent or a broker, I’d recommend that you see if they can give you any other information on how that limit was set for you (and get their response in writing if you can!).

Best,

Katie Goodrich