Protecting Your Jewellery
Most of us have, at some point had some dealings with insurance companies, whether home insurance, car insurance or jewellery insurance. Often, these dealings aren’t particularly enjoyable. Needless to say, insurers are in the business of making sure they mitigate as much of any loss as possible, which often comes back to you, the premium payer, taking the hit.
We’re not saying all insurance dealings are like this, but there are some practices out out, which we have issues with. Call us naive, because we believe that if you insure an item then you should get the value of the item back in full, to facilitate a like-for-like replacement, it seems to us that there is no need for a ‘Mr. Fixer’ middle man taking a 25% commission from the merchant providing the replacement.
How This Jewellery Insurance ‘System’ Works In short, when you claim on your jewellery insurance, your insurer will hand your case over to ‘Mr. Fixer’, who will then give you vouchers to redeem at specified partner outlets. Now, apart from the fact that you’re unlikely to find an exact replacement at one of these partner retailers (we’ll come on to this shortly), ‘Mr. Fixer’ takes a 25% cut of the voucher value you spend. In short, you’re not only limited to these partner retailers, but you’re also paying for the privilege, on top of paying the insurance policy for years.
The problem we have with this system is that you, as policyholders and premium payers, are simply not getting quality replacements. A majority of the partner outlets are high-street stores that primarily offer mass-produced fashion trinkets, as opposed to high-quality jewellery. Similarly, if you don’t have the energy and drive to complain to the financial ombudsman, there’s little you can do to change this situation. The market is tied up and are unlikely to change their practices as long as people don’t know about these scams.
How You’re Treated
A recent case brought to the financial ombudsman outlined exactly this problem. If you have antique or high quality jewellery, and you are palmed off with vouchers for a high-street store, you’re not going to be happy.
However, if you demand a cash settlement, as opposed to vouchers, you’re forced to take a 20-25% cut in the amount offered. This is simply unacceptable. Robbed by the person that stole your jewellery, is more than enough robbery thank you.
Tackling the Problem
So what can you do to avoid this? Your first port of call is your insurer. In order to take your jewellery insurance complaint any further, it’s important that you raise the issue first with them. be sure to take notes, record conversations if possible (tell them you’re doing this) and keep an accurate record of the dates and times of your calls. Your insurer will have eight weeks to look into your complaint, but you can also contact the financial ombudsman to contact them on your behalf and give your claim a little more strength.
If you don’t get a satisfactory resolution to your complaint, you can then ask the financial ombudsman to take a look at your situation. They will assess your case and may be able to take it further. They have the power to order your jewellery insurance company to comply, so this is the best way to go.
We know that nothing can replace sentimental items, but if you?re looking for replacement jewellery, look no further than ComparetheDiamond.com (formerly diamondgeezer.com) for the best in the industry