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Home Insurance -
We, Our Jewellery and the Need for Insurance Cover |
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Ordinarily one would not imagine that Britons are so much rooting for jewellery as a recent study suggests. Britons are generally believed to be modest and easy going and often care not so much about expensive collections like jewellery, the distant observer would assume. But on a closer look it becomes clearer that irrespective of that show of modesty people in the UK really crave for jewellery. That much was confirmed in the study by Halifax Home Insurance last week.
While it could be assumed as normal to own jewellery worth up to a couple of thousands pounds, the story here or what might be seen as a bit abnormal is to wear such expensive gem everyday and outside of the safety of one’s home. It is even more surprising if one does so knowing they had not taken out any proper insurance cover for their precious possession.
The research found that while people have, collectively, stockpiled jewellery worth about £52 billion pounds in their homes, at least £8.2 billion of those are worn out on a daily basis. And shockingly too, it was also found that 11 per cent of people own a jewellery box that conceals at least £5,000 worth of bling each. Yet 35 per cent admitted they never bothered to find out the actual value of their collections. In the same manner 10 per cent said they did check the value more than years ago.
This situation portrays a lot worry for insurers as such people, who hardly know how much their jewellery collection is worth, would usually be unable to properly estimate the value when taking out insurance policy. Also, where they find it a bit daunting, given the failure to know what it’s worth, they might end up not insuring it at all.
Both scenarios spell danger especially for those who own the jewellery. In the first case if one does not know how much their possession is worth how will they be able to make claims that are accurate with their loss? In this situation they are most likely to undervalue their jewellery and end up being underpaid. It was in relation to this that Halifax Home Insurance senior claims manager, Martyn Foulds warned that people with expensive jewellery that don’t know their value and insure the correct amount could be selling themselves short. It is, therefore, foolhardy, in my opinion, to go as far as insuring a possession that one does not know its actual value.
Perhaps, when people consider this position and realise how unwise they would be to undervalue their jewellery while insuring it, they then opt not to even insure it. This is more unwise since we have been found to be in the habit of flaunting our precious stuff as we leave home each day. The trouble is we could have someone watching us as we look gorgeous wearing the jewellery. In the end we may either have them visiting us, without actually giving them an invite, or be intercepted somehow and asked to hand them over. In both situations the shocker could be excruciating, but it is usually several folds more so if we knew we deliberately refused to take out the right insurance or did not even purchase any cover.
My word of advice to each of us is to make sure our precious jewellery are adequately insured. In the first place we bought them because we wanted to wear and look gorgeous – no one should deprive us of that. But in wearing them outside our homes let’s be mindful of the fact that we could be inviting burglars. We need, as such, to be cautious in advertising such valuable items to thieves and be wise enough to take out the correct insurance.
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