The Nightmare on Norwich Union Street 3 - iVal returns

Call me Jack.

Again, we are back in Norwich Union Street. This time iVal got it soooooooo wrong.

A couple of years ago, a lady bought a necklace from us by a Danish designer. This designer isn't that well known, but her jewellery is quite exclusive and can be expensive. Its all hand made and mostly one off pieces. The item in question was a large natural pearl simply mounted in a 22ct gold bezel as a pendant and put on a long thick snake chain in silver. The purchase price would have been around £200. now, as a result of the strength of the Euro and increases in gold prices, a replacement would cost say £275-300 ... thats if we can get one for her from the designer. If we make one for her, it will be at least £225.

OK, so not alot of money in jewellery insurance terms, but enough for an individual - and of course, stolen. So Norwich Union pass this over to iVal who value it at £23.

C'mon iVal - this is totally unreasonable. £23 wouldn't even replace the chain, yet alone the gold bezel mounted pendant. When will these people get it right? And why don't they?

Well - it would seem that they have a conflict. A few posts back I asked who should be allowed to appraise jewellery for insurance. I said that any organisation with an affiliation to the insurance company was a conflict of interest to the customer - you would have though that anyone affiliated to the jeweller would be baised against the insurer (giving higher valuations to pass these on to their parent jeweller) ... iVal is actually part of Goldsmiths the high street jewellers.

So why is this such a mess?

The truth is, no-one has really got any control over the insurers. Oh yes, they have a code of conduct and are answerable to the FSA in some cases but that doesn't seem to count for much. Only today we received a note from our insurers saying that our premiums were going to increase due to more thefts and pay outs and the lack of police action when jewellery is stolen. The last time I looked we are all paying for not only the right to the police action when our things are stolen but also due care when things are valued for pay outs ... only we're not getting it - any of it!

The upshoot of all this is that the industry remains unregulated, unprofessional and full of thieves - not dissimilar to politics then, eh?