The real jewellery insurance con

Call me Jack.

The long con; a term all of us should be familiar with.  For those who aren't, it means someone is prepared to invest a lot of time to con you in the long run.  The more I write this blog, the more I feel we're all part of a big long con called insurance; whether it be home insurance, car insurance, business insurance, life insurance ... the biggest con of all is jewellery insurance.

I've just had another example of this from a couple who came in today.  They were burgled last year and she lost all her jewellery.  Amongst other things that were special to her were two strings of pearls and a diamond eternity ring.  These items were insured by Barclays home insurance - the valuers were iVal, who this time did a good job in reaching a fair valuation of the claim.  Their insurance values were £3200 for a long string of pearls, around 40 inches long; £2200 for a double row necklace around 18 inches with a gold clasp; and £2500 for a channel set eternity ring with diamonds.  There were some other pieces as well, and they were fairly valued too reaching a total of around £9500 for the claim.

So Jack.  What's the problem?  Where's the con?  You ask.  Hmmmm ... where indeed.  this time, its in the replacements.

Barclays preferred jeweller was actually an internet based jewellery sales site.  They brought a selection of jewellery to the client, who chose replacements from these with the help and advice of the agent from the internet jewellers.  The only thing was, none of it was the same as what she had, so really she wasn't at all happy with it - but she had no choice but to take it under the terms of her contract.  There were no other alternatives made available.

They came to see us on recommendation to see if we could help with another piece still outstanding from the robbery, something which the preferred jeweller nor any other jeweller could help with.  We currently have that in hand.  While they were in the shop, they told us their jewellery insurance nightmare and showed us the other pieces.

To be honest - the long replacement string of pearls were on the money at £3200 - they were good quality akoya pearls ... but they were very poorly matched so they looked like a row of dull plastic balls.  OK, so they were expensive, but this is rather like having a bad Van Gogh - priceless but awful to look at.  As far as we can tell, her original strand was a long 60 inch large white freshwater pearl necklace - cheaper individual pearls, but much better matched, whiter, more uniform and of course the correct replacement.  The other pearls were well overpriced - we would have charged less than a thousand for better examples.  Both strings of pearls were strung hideously - no wonder the poor lady didn't want to wear them ... but now she was fobbed off with them and there was nothing she could do.  The eternity ring was OK, but the diamonds were again poorly matched.  On a later visit she told us that the ring should have been a much wider gold band with bigger diamonds, so this perhaps wasn't ever going to be replaced for the amount valued. The rest of the jewellery was supplied in the same way, again these were reasonable but not the quality of her stolen jewellery or suitable replacements.

Basically, the whole robbery experience had been gruesome for the couple and she was clearly very upset and not at all pleased with the replacements.  It could have been that the jewellery she lost was actually worth far far more than that of the replacements and the quality difference is clear to her - so the valuations were too low.  But we'll never know.

So why does this happen?  

Because the loss adjuster from the insurance company is not a jewellery expert.  Indeed, it would seem that the preferred jeweller has no idea either ... or they were just getting rid of some stuff they had lying around for a few years on the unsuspecting client when she was at a low ebb after the robbery.  This does rather beg the question why people are forced to use vouchers for a specific jewellers if that jeweller hasn't got what they want at all?  Its not what we're led to believe by the insurers in their advertising.  

Here's the horrible truth - if your small print states you have to use the insurance companies preferred jeweller, then there's no way out.  You can ask to use another jeweller or for a cash settlement, but they will only give you a proportion of your claim based on reductions for wear and tear and what they can get by buying in bulk from their preferred jeweller.  This isn't usually enough for you to replace like for like or old for new if you chose this cash settlement which, in our experience can be as little as one third of the estimated value of the vouchers.  Legally, there is no further recourse ... or is there?   This is a subject for another blog I think, but for now ...

Shame on you Barclays for using an online jewellery supplier and not a high quality high street jewellers and forcing your clients to accept things they don't want!