Pair and set clause

A pair of Sèvres vases insured for 200,000 euros at agreed value, one vase broken during a move: on its own, the survivor is worth only 40,000 euros on the market. An ordinary property policy would pay for the broken vase, roughly half the value of the pair, and leave the insured with a loss nobody chose. The pair and set clause corrects that. It treats the pair, the parure or the run of pieces as a single item, and the insurer pays the difference between the agreed value of the set before the loss and the value of what remains. Depending on the wording, a second route opens: the insured hands the remaining pieces to the insurer and receives the full agreed value of the set. The clause shows up in jewelry (earrings, parures, necklaces strung as a series), in the decorative arts, silverware, porcelain services, and for polyptychs or suites of prints. The claims adjuster first reads the schedule of insured items: a set that the inventory describes piece by piece, with a value for each, may end up indemnified per piece, and that is where the dispute starts. Residual value is priced by an appraiser, and the insured often contests it, arguing the remaining piece cannot be sold. The underwriter, for his part, knows the clause pushes the maximum loss from a snatch theft or a single breakage well past the value of one piece, and he builds that into the rating of the collection. Not to be confused with depreciation after restoration, which pays what a repaired work still loses on the market, with no piece missing.