House full of antiques, what to do about homeowner's insurance?

My wife and I have a house full of antiques and while nothing (yet) is of true museum quality, we do have some very nice pieces (Merklen tables, Berkey and Gay bedroom suites, Pabst armoire, Hunzinger chairs/rockers, 1853 square grand piano, etc.  I'm curious to see what others here do with regard to insurance.  Do people generally have appraisals done for each item or do they just raise the overall insured value of house contents?

You need to have an appraisal done for furniture.  If something should happen, you don't want to be in the position of trying to convince the insurance company that your furniture really was more valuable than what one could pick up at the local junk store.  (In that regard, you should also take pictures and store them in a safe deposit box or other location outside the home.  Digital pictures stored on a compact disc will work.)  Plus, different kinds of antiques might require different insurance riders.  (Insurance companies offer a separate rider for antique glass for instance.  They often don't require an appraisal for this is you can identify the piece and market value can be established.)  If you use an appraiser known to the insurance company, it might be willing to have one person appraise all the items in your home.

I pay for a rider on my homeowners that has each item itemized and separately valued.  I use Quicken Home Inventory Manager to keep an inventory with purchase price and values.  You can even store photos for each item.  I generate reports out of Home Inventory Manager that I send to my insurer for them to create the itemized list.

The challenge I run into is when I get new stuff or sell stuff, there isn't a great way to get a report of what's changed (adds AND deletes), which is what the insurance company needs.  They get confused if you send the new report of everything.

So how do you arrive at the value - via appraisal, personal estimation, auction/retail comparables?  Does your insurer use your purchase price or the stated value for the rider?  I can think of instances where the difference between the two will be significant and the replacement cost would be nowhere near the purchase price. 

As for appraisals, I probably know more about our furniture than most local appraisers.  While this thinking may be somewhat egotistical, I spend a lot of time researching our items.  I wouldn't expect or want to pay for someone else to do that.  Also it seems somewhat silly for me to do all the work, then have an appraiser regurgitate it in an "official" format and charge me for it.  I guess if that is what it takes, that's what I'd do.

Probably these are questions best suited for our insurer, but I wanted to seek the advice of forum members before I speak with them.  Thanks!

I agree.  Many of us in the RV community spend a lot of time researching prices and know better than local appraisers what specific higher-end Victorian items are worth.

I sent a list of replacement cost values to my insurer - a price that if I had to replace it in a few days/weeks at full retail price - I would have the coverage to do so.  This is almost always significantly more than I paid and also much more than what I could "dump it quickly" on Ebay for.

They'll take anything you send them, valuation-wise.  You'll just pay accordingly for that coverage amount, so it doesn't matter to them. 

Maybe others have different experiences/opinions on what is right to do, but that is my story.