Jewellery insurance - Who should be approved to value jewellery for insurance purposes?

Call me Jack.

Jewellery valuation - what a crock!  The guys doing it at the moment generally have no idea.  So who should be able to carry out jewellery valuations for insurance purposes?  Let's list the possible bodies:

1.  The insurance company?  There would be a real conflict of interest here - so - not them or anyone on their payroll.

2.  A qualified gemologist?  This person should be employed in the process as they can accurately appraise the stone(s) in the jewellery.  But, whilst they may also have other skills or experience, they are primarily concerned with the quality of gems and perhaps have no idea of the value of them.

3.  A  jewellery maker?  This person would be able to tell you exactly how much it would cost to replace a piece a wholesale prices and would give you a quote to replace, in the same way you would get three quotes to replace windows in your house.  This is a fair appraisal of the wholesale value of the piece if you get three quotes assuming they are all providing the same quality of materials.  But, in general, they won't necessarity be able to tell you the value of antique, vintage or collectable jewellery or have experience in retail mark ups.  So they will play a part in my opinion.

4.  The retailer?  For standard pieces, like a standard design certificated 1 carat diamond ring.  Yes, they will be able to tell you exactly what THEY would replace this at.  So, again, the cheaper of three quotes would be acceptable.  But in the case of something they have no experience in, then unless they have another string to their bow, they are out of the picture entirely.  Also, the possibility of price ringing by the major chains is going to eliminate jewellers who are just retailers.

5.  A qualified valuation expert?  Well, you would have thought so, wouldn't you?  But read missmarketcrash's blog (link available on my gem of tanzania post) about this.  Often these people are not as highly qualified as you would expect and have no experience beyond their rather short training.  Yes, it could be said that their valuation is THE valuation, but in our experience (and we have several instances where we have vehemently disagreed), they can be all over the place when presented with less common items.  Please comment on this one.

6.  Antique  and vintage jewellery dealers?  Hmmm ... yes.  You will really find out how much they will pay for your piece, and they are surprisingly accurate amongst themselves as to what that piece is worth.  These people are really at the sharp end.  They know what they can get for the pieces so that defines their "worth" outside of the retail price.  But there it is, most insurers work with retail prices, so whilst in my opinion the value given by the dealers gives you a fair idea of the second hand trade price, it bears no relationship to a retail price charged on the high street.

7.  The jewellery historian.  Again, these people are not retailers - but some of them buy in their specialist area at full price from dealers in the trade - so they will know what these pieces are worth should you be lucky enough to be able to find one secondhand.  Then its a case of condition and so on.  So there will be a place for their expert advice in a valuation.

So who then can do all this?  Well, they don't really exist.  That's the problem.  I can only tell you how we do it.  Read on.

As a manufacturing jeweler in the UK who also retails, we know the cost to replace the components of the piece of jewellery and the amount of time chargeable to make it. We then come up with a "wholesale price" on that jewellery and then we apply a fair retail mark up and hey presto, you get a replacement value (in a fair market - perhaps if you went to Boodles then you would be paying more, but surely that's your choice as, despite the hallmark, the piece would likely NOT be worth more to your insurer than the replacement value of their preferred supplier when you walk out of the shop with it).  Also one member of our partnership is considered one of the most knowledgeable jewellery historians on the planet, so anything which has a value based not only in intrinsic components gets the fair increase befitting it.

I'm not saying this is perfect, but it should be a basis upon which to start this incredibly complicated process of valuing jewellery.