Original purchase price tells you almost nothing
Antiques and family heirlooms are the category where the gap between what something cost and what it’s worth is widest, and least understood by the person who owns it. A piece of furniture bought decades ago, or inherited without a purchase price at all, has a real current value that has nothing to do with what anyone originally paid, and often nothing to do with what the owner assumes.
Why heirlooms specifically get underinsured
Inherited pieces rarely come with paperwork. There’s no receipt, no original appraisal, sometimes not even certainty about exact age or maker. That absence of documentation tends to result in the piece being left off a policy entirely, or valued far too conservatively, simply because nobody’s taken the step of getting it properly assessed.
What proper coverage requires
- A current appraisal from a specialist in the relevant category, furniture, decorative arts, textiles, since general appraisers may not have the expertise a specific antique category requires
- Documentation of provenance and history where it exists, which supports both value and authenticity in a claim
- Restoration and repair coverage valued appropriately, since restoring an antique correctly costs meaningfully more than repairing an ordinary piece of furniture
An heirloom with no paperwork isn’t worthless. It’s just unappraised, and those are very different problems.
Talk to a specialist
Have a question about how this applies to your specific property? A quick conversation is faster than reading the rest of this guide.
Getting the paperwork started
Part of a full asset review is identifying exactly which pieces in a home fall into this category and getting the appraisal process started, rather than leaving inherited or undocumented pieces uninsured by default.