The saddest part of our job as jewellery valuers is when a jewellery owner gets burgled and we are asked to evaluate the jewellery loss only to find they have no valuation documents. This makes it impossible to establish a fair value for the items. Or they may not have been fully covered for the items in the first place. Then the owner starts to feel like they are getting “robbed” all over again by their own insurance company.
This is because insurance companies usually place limits on what they will pay for jewellery that they didn’t know you owned. There are two kinds of limits – a per item limit that is typically between $1000 and $2500, and a total loss limit that can be as little as $3000 but is usually more like $10,000. For items or collections over these limits to be covered they must be documented and specified on your insurance policy.
The person that has just suffered the burglary always says to us that they wished they had their jewellery valued but “we never got round to it”, or “we thought it would never happen to us”. We feel that you should get around to it before its too late. Jewellery is the prime target of thieves because it is small, easily transportable, difficult to trace, and relatively easy to turn into cash. Why hesitate to spend $25 to $110 having a precious jewellery item professionally documented & valued when you stand to lose $500 or $5000 or $50,000 by not “getting around to it”.
Some of the more modern home contents insurance policies have very high per item limits – $5,000 or $10,000. Some high-end policies even have no limits on jewellery. This is done by the marketing departments of the insurance companies to make it easy for high net worth individuals to take out the policy in the first place. There is no obligation to get jewellery valued before it is fully covered. It also tends to give the policy holder a false sense of security.
This is all very well – until claim time. This is when you find out that the claims department of your insurance company is going to require proof that you owned the jewellery in the first place, proof of exactly what the jewellery items were in terms of carat gold or other metals such as platinum and silver, and sizes & qualities of diamonds and gemstones, and proof of their value.
If you would like to “get around to it” right now its easy to get your precious diamonds and jewellery documented, valued, and fully insured at GemLab Jewellery Valuers
