Value of clothing, personal collections and heirlooms often under-estimated. Your clients' wardrobes may be in need of risk-mitigation strategies. The U.K.'s Norwich Union has found that clothing and other personal effects top the list of chronically under-insured valuables.

In a series of "wealth checks" of its high-net-worth customers, Norwich Union, a general-insurance and pension-plan provider based in Norwich, also found that the "average" affluent client has under-insured his possessions by nearly 70%.

Would you be surprised to learn...?

"It comes as quite a shock to most people to know that normally fine art and antiques are priced at least 25% cheaper than general contents and in high-theft areas are often more than 50% cheaper," says Nigel Wembridge, manager of Norwich Union's Tapestry home-insurance policy.

Edgeware, U.K.-based valuation specialists Quastel Associates surveyed 100 Norwich Union customers, and found them to be under-insured by $15.4 million in all. One homeowner had under-estimated the value of fine arts and antiques by about $2.5 million. |image1|

In the list of under-insured items that Norwich Union spun off from its survey, antiques came second to clothing and personal effects. Among other possessions high on the list were wine and stamp collections, ceramics, original works of art, Christmas decorations, photographs and picture fames.

John Weallans, a chartered arts and antiques surveyor with Quastel, says the house-to-house visits he and his colleagues paid to Norwich Union's home-insurance customers "sometimes end up like a scene from the Antiques Roadshow," a popular television program with versions for U.S. and U.K. audiences. "Often [homeowners] have no idea how much that simple oak table they've had for decades has increased in value or how much all those shoes and suits in the wardrobe are really worth." -FWR

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