Mrs. Willis received $10,000 from an insurance settlement. The claims representative
(CR) later develops how she spent the $10,000.
Mrs. Willis paid back creditors with $7,000, and purchased $3,000 in jewelry that
she ordinarily wears.
Because Mrs. Willis wears the jewelry, the CR must determine if SSA can exclude the
jewelry from resources as personal effects or a countable resource, in the form of
other personal property.
Mrs. Willis’s statements establish that the jewelry has no family significance and
that she purchased the jewelry for its value, as a means to spend down the $10,000.
The CR correctly determines that the jewelry is not an excludable personal effect
because an item purchased for its value cannot be a personal effect. The CR also correctly
determines to consider the jewelry as “other personal property” and evaluates it using
normal resource counting rules.