Help needed! Jewelers Mutual quote received.

[JaneDough]

I've never required insurance on jewellery before. I was just advised by the underwriters that the annual premium will be $302 (canadian) plus a mandatory $500 deductible. I live in Canada so everything is in Canadian dollars.

When I spoke with the company for an initial quote, I was quoted 0$ deductible and $312 premium. This is not available to me anymore.

I'm wondering if the mandatory deductible is a normal scenario? Seems high.. and strange I do not have the option of $0 deductible. I phoned and the person I spoke with could not give me an explanation.

The ring is a 1.4 H, VS1 signature ideal from Brian Gavin in a simple 18 k gold band setting. I supplied them with the lab certificate, receipt, etc and authorized a soft credit check (I have a really good score and no debt or prior credit issues - at least that I'm aware of). The sticker price for the diamond and band in Canadian dollars was about $20K our dollar sucks right now and the quote is based on the Canadian price plus tax amount. The US dollar price was about $5-6 thousand less

Alternatively, does anyone have or know of a similar insurer in Canada?

Thank you!

I'm kind of lazy and might just get the policy if the numbers seem reasonable to most people...

 

[distracts]

I might put the deductible even higher, like a thousand dollars. Anything like a prong retipping, stone resetting if the stone fell out and I still have it and need to get it reset, resizing, ring reshanking - I'm not going to be claiming those on insurance and you shouldn't be either. And I don't mind paying a deductible. I think I only switched to $500 deductible once I had like five pieces insured in case of total loss of all of them. That quote sounds a smidgen high to me but it could just be where you are located has higher rates and then the currency conversion.

 

[JaneDough]

Thank you distracts! That makes sense. I was telling my colleague about this and she said car insurance deductibles are even lower than that.

 

[Rose-gold-or-bust]

It may depend on the laws in your province. Quebec especially has a lot of crazy laws. Insurance companies like deductibles because it reduces to risk somebody will lie that the lost the item to collect the insurance money.

 

[WinkHPD]

Using Canadian dollars I come up with a cost of 1.56% of the appraised item. In Idaho I pay 1.5%. In LA or NY, the premium is MUCH higher

I will leave it to someone in one of those locations to tell you what the premium might be in their location.

You may be able to save a few dollars with your homeowner's if you have a good policy with them already. I find some of my clients are able to save a little by using their homeowners if they already have a fairly comprehensible policy.Others will have to pay more through their homeowners than through Jeweler's Mutual.

Wink

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I agree that the amount is not as low as some places, but it is lower than others. I would always use a deductible on a policy like that. In fact, I'd raise it to $1000 if the premium would change enough. As @distracts said, the only claim I'd ever make is if my diamond is lost, stolen, or cracked for a total loss. If the setting is damaged, then I'd replace that myself. Once you make a claim, you can usually count on it being harder to get coverage the next time or premiums will be higher.

 

[JJB.Terry]

You may want to ask them about their threshold when mandatory deductible is required. I think it might be 20 or 25k. I initially had similar encounter many months ago, originally no deductible but once underwritten, the value of the piece was over 25k and required a deductible, which I would have opted for anyways.

 

[CSpan]

I have a massive annual premium (both appraisals were sky high and of course I can't find either of them) but $0 deductible. I don't even think there is an option for one. If there was I would totally take it. I like higher deductibles for the reasons stated here. Someone once said you only need insurance if you can't afford to cover the entire cost (we may have been talking about health insurance to be fair). I can cover $500 or $1000, if my entire ring ends up in the garbage disposal or I am robbed. What I can't afford is another tens of thousands for a ring.

 

[JaneDough]

Using Canadian dollars I come up with a cost of 1.56% of the appraised item. In Idaho I pay 1.5%. In LA or NY, the premium is MUCH higher

I will leave it to someone in one of those locations to tell you what the premium might be in their location.

You may be able to save a few dollars with your homeowner's if you have a good policy with them already. I find some of my clients are able to save a little by using their homeowners if they already have a fairly comprehensible policy.Others will have to pay more through their homeowners than through Jeweler's Mutual.

Wink

Thank you Wink for the real life examples. It puts things into perspective for me. Most of my friends and colleagues don’t even know if they have insurance or just have it on their house policy which is capped at $6000 for basic coverage or up to $10,000 with additional premiums. Their rings are worth much more than that!

 

[JaneDough]

My thanks to everyone for their replies and time. They were extremely helpful!

 

[CHRISTY-DANIELLE]

The numbers sound totally in line with my own recent JM policy. After underwriting I had a required $1000 deductible and $308 premium on a 22k value. I'm fine with that, as would only use the insurance for loss, theft, or severe stone damage.