Specialist Jewellery Insurance – Is it worth it
photo credit: Care_SMC
If you stop for one moment and consider the amount of jewellery that you have in your house you may be surprised. If you take this one step further and you and you partner actually get out all the jewellery you won between you and spread it out on your bed you are going to be more than a little shocked. Amassed over the years you will probably have more jewellery than you imagined – engagement and wedding rings, family heirlooms that have been passed down, all kinds of presents that you have received from each other over the years.
It won’t all be valuable – but can you tell the difference? Some will hold more sentimental value than others and could you bear to lose any of it?
It often comes as a shock to most people that if they were to be burgled they wouldn’t be automatically insured for a lot of their most expensive items. It is worth checking out your current insurance policies and having a good look at the small print. Individual jewellery items often have an individual claim limit on them. Potentially, if you have expensive diamond engagement or wedding rings you could receive a lot less than they are worth in the event of their theft. Similarly if you have a lot of jewellery that has been passed down from generation to generation you may have items that are worth a lot more in today’s market than when you received them.
So what should you do?
There are two things that you need to look at doing and the first is getting your jewellery properly valued. This is often called an appraisal and an independent appraiser will look at the both the gems and the settings of your jewellery and work out an accurate current market values for your items. This can then be passed on to your insurer and you will have an up to date value. It is worth considering appraisal every few years on your most expensive items in case the market is fluctuating.
Secondly you need to find an independent jewellery insurer. You current home insurance will be fine for all your normal household items but for expensive and sentimental jewellery you should always opt for a specialist insurer – this way you can be sure that if you are the victim of theft you are going to receive a payout that is in line with the worth of the jewellery.
So give it a try this weekend, get all the family jewellery out and have a long hard look at it – see if you can work out its worth and try and gauge whether you should opt for specialist jewellery insurance. For anyone who has even amassed a modest collection of jewellery I am sure I can guess what you will be doing throughout the following week…. (Googling ‘jewellery appraisal’)
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