To insure or not to insure

[cocosparkles]

I recently purchased a 5 stone diamond band with 20 pointers and am debating whether to insure it or not. It was a no brainer when it came to my engagement ring and my earrings that I got them insured; I have some other jewelry (rings) that I wear on a daily basis that I have not insured and am somewhat comfortable with that decision. For the 5 stone, I'm not too sure. Any thoughts? What would you do??

 

[kenny]

Personally, for myself, I'm very anti-insurance.

Insurance is gambling.
You are betting there will be a loss.
The company is betting there won't be.
They do the analysis and the math and calculate your premium to cover all losses of all their customer's claims, pay for employees' salaries, the building, furniture, electricity, insurance etc AND profit.

When gambling the odds are always stacked in the house's favor.

I only buy insurance I'm legally required to buy, like on my car and house.
If I lose a diamond, I'll live.
I may replace it; I may not.

This is my opinion and I respect people who have different ones.
I am not preaching to get you to think like I do, but you asked for opinions.
Clearly zillions of people value the "peace of mind" insurance gives them over the money it costs them.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I have insurance on things I wear relatively often that would be painful to replace financially. I never put items worth a couple thousand on there.

 

[rubybeth]

If it wouldn't be a big deal for you to replace it out of pocket, then there's no need for insurance since you'd be 'self insured.'

 

[Fife]

Insurance is not gambling. Quite the contrary... Not buying insurance is gambling; gambling that nothing bad is going to happen to your ring. If you're insured, whether a loss does or does not occur, you won't suffer financially.


Depending on the value of your ring, it might already be covered on your homeowners. Ask your agent or check your policy which should specify a certain amount for jewelry.

 

[yssie]

I recently purchased a 5 stone diamond band with 20 pointers and am debating whether to insure it or not. It was a no brainer when it came to my engagement ring and my earrings that I got them insured; I have some other jewelry (rings) that I wear on a daily basis that I have not insured and am somewhat comfortable with that decision. For the 5 stone, I'm not too sure. Any thoughts? What would you do??

How much would it be to add it to your policy?

My bracelet is "easily financially replaceable", and I wouldn't bother except that it's an extra $7 a year or something - not necessary but definitely easier for me than being out 3k if I lose it.

 

[chrono]

Insurance is pretty much paying someone else to safeguard your monthly or yearly payment to them until you need to use it. If you don't use it, the company keeps your money for good. I'd rather self insure, meaning, put aside the monthly payment to myself so if something happens, the funds are there for me to replace the ring. There is no financial loss there. If nothing happens, the money is still mine for the future.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Hi,

I would insure it through J Mutual to be on the safe side. I am one who made the mistake of not insuring my jewery and paid the price for it! I think it comes to a price amount. If it's a couple hundred dollar item, I'd say no. But over $1k, yes.

 

[LibbyLA]

What concerns me, and the reason that I insure, is that if something catastrophic happens (a fire or hurricane destroys my house or burglars steal all my valuables), that would be a huge loss. Other than one or two somewhat pricey individual pieces, I don't have any really valuable pieces, but collectively, they're worth a fair amount. Losing a piece or two of the less expensive jewelery wouldn't be a big deal and I could probably replace it used at reasonable prices, but I couldn't afford to replace it all.

JM rates in my area are 1.1% of value for any piece up to $15K. It would take more than the rest of my lifetime of saving premiums to self-insure against a catastrophic loss. If I never lose anything, then the insurance company "wins" but that's the case with any insurance.

liz

 

[denverappraiser]

The insurance company is estimating what the odds are of you having a covered loss and what it's going to cost them if this happens and then they set the premiums to cover this along with administrative overhead and profit. They have smart people with computers and mountains of statistics to calculate what the odds of various things are and they have smart people working on keeping down the cost of claims when it's required. That's gambling, and they make it palatable to their stockholders by having a ton of customers so they can make decent predictions about what to expect in the way of revenue and expenses. 'Gambling' may be a harsh word but it's fundamentally correct and Kenny's correct that the rates are stacked against you.

That doesn't make it a bad buy. If lack of insurance causes you undue stress or it changes your usage of the item, like it makes you leave it in a safety deposit box unworn then insurance is providing you good value. If a loss would be irreplaceable without financial burden and failure to replace would cause you stress then what you're buying is stress relief. How much that's worth is up to you.

The ONLY place where you have an advantage in this game is in the estimating your own risk profile. They're doing it statistically based on people who live in your zip code and possibly people with other similar characteristics. They don't know you at all. If you have insider knowledge about your own lifestyle and KNOW that you're more or less inclined to lose or break things than the 'average' customer, you may be able to beat the odds. It's sort of like counting cards...

 

[that_someone_special]

I pay $550 a year for Jewelry insurance... um, yeah, I could use that $550 towards something else.. but after 10 years ($5,500) I would rather pay THAT for piece of mind for me, than pay $0 and have to replace a 3 carat diamond

The other thing is that I'm not so concerned about losing one piece (it would be sad though) but what if I lost EVERYTHING in a fire or it was stolen or I was robbed? I would be devastated.

 

[kenny]

When we put money on the chance of winning something it's gambling.
IMHO putting money on the chance losing something is still gambling.

... not that there's anything morally wrong with gambling.
It's just not for me because the odds are in the house's favor.
If a bad thing happens, so what. I'll deal.
At least that money's still in my wallet; that's a good thing and a SURE thing not a chance.

The money I've saved over a lifetime of not putting money down in Vegas, buying lottery tickets or buying optional insurance (including extended warranties) has paid for a few of my fancy colored diamonds.

Again, if you feel the peace of mind you get for the price of the insurance premiums worth it, then buy it.

 

[Fife]

You don't have to put money down on something to take a gamble.

If you take a trip to mexico, you can drink free water out of the tap in your hotel bathroom. You may or may not get Montezuma's revenge. That's a gamble. Buying bottled water may or may not have been necessary, but you put down a little bit of money for the guarantee.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I recently purchased a 5 stone diamond band with 20 pointers and am debating whether to insure it or not. It was a no brainer when it came to my engagement ring and my earrings that I got them insured; I have some other jewelry (rings) that I wear on a daily basis that I have not insured and am somewhat comfortable with that decision. For the 5 stone, I'm not too sure. Any thoughts? What would you do??

How much would it be to add it to your policy?

My bracelet is "easily financially replaceable", and I wouldn't bother except that it's an extra $7 a year or something - not necessary but definitely easier for me than being out 3k if I lose it.

Yssie, I have never seen rates that low! Usually $3000 is going to cost $30 or so a year. So who is your insurance through?

 

[Dreamer_D]

I insure my engagement ring. My premium is very low, only about $150 a year or something, and I would need to pay that for 100 years for my insurance premium to equal the cost of my ring.

I don't insure anything else, and as a "rule of thumb" likely would not insure anything under $3k. My insurance for my e-ring covers a certain amount of unscheduled jewelery anyways.

DS: It costs less to add something to an already really high premium than it would be to insure the item on its own.

 

[Laila619]

I only pay about $70 a year, but I still might stop insuring after a while. I'm very careful with my ring and I don't even wear it very often--so I just feel like insurance is not necessary.

 

[yssie]

I recently purchased a 5 stone diamond band with 20 pointers and am debating whether to insure it or not. It was a no brainer when it came to my engagement ring and my earrings that I got them insured; I have some other jewelry (rings) that I wear on a daily basis that I have not insured and am somewhat comfortable with that decision. For the 5 stone, I'm not too sure. Any thoughts? What would you do??

How much would it be to add it to your policy?

My bracelet is "easily financially replaceable", and I wouldn't bother except that it's an extra $7 a year or something - not necessary but definitely easier for me than being out 3k if I lose it.

Yssie, I have never seen rates that low! Usually $3000 is going to cost $30 or so a year. So who is your insurance through?

It's JM! But oh, I didn't even realise that I left out a lot of other info that would be pertinent to getting that specific number!

-it's insurance for MD, which is a lot cheaper than say NY/CA
-it was a *really* low number for the coverage - I think $7 but I'll have to pull my policy and check when I get home. But that was just to add it to my existing policy, and my existing policy total is pretty high so maybe in scale adding and removing smaller items is less pricey? I know that's how insurance for other stuff works so I guess it's probably true here too... My actual policy through JM is hideously expensive because the most expensive item is valued at *just* over a significant premium jump bracket, so I'm actually looking for a new carrier!

 

[diamondringlover]

I have a 5 stone ring with 15 pointers and mine is insured, I cannot afford to replace it if I lost it...I have my e-ring and my 5 stone and my new 3 stone emerald cut insured and I think I pay around $120 a year give or take, to me its well worth the peace of mind.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I insure my engagement ring. My premium is very low, only about $150 a year or something, and I would need to pay that for 100 years for my insurance premium to equal the cost of my ring.

I don't insure anything else, and as a "rule of thumb" likely would not insure anything under $3k. My insurance for my e-ring covers a certain amount of unscheduled jewelery anyways.

DS: It costs less to add something to an already really high premium than it would be to insure the item on its own.

That has not been the case with the insurance companies I have used. It is a straight amount per hundred dollars of coverage. In my area, it is about $1 per $100 of value.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I recently purchased a 5 stone diamond band with 20 pointers and am debating whether to insure it or not. It was a no brainer when it came to my engagement ring and my earrings that I got them insured; I have some other jewelry (rings) that I wear on a daily basis that I have not insured and am somewhat comfortable with that decision. For the 5 stone, I'm not too sure. Any thoughts? What would you do??

How much would it be to add it to your policy?

My bracelet is "easily financially replaceable", and I wouldn't bother except that it's an extra $7 a year or something - not necessary but definitely easier for me than being out 3k if I lose it.

Yssie, I have never seen rates that low! Usually $3000 is going to cost $30 or so a year. So who is your insurance through?

It's JM! But oh, I didn't even realise that I left out a lot of other info that would be pertinent to getting that specific number!

-it's insurance for MD, which is a lot cheaper than say NY/CA
-it was a *really* low number for the coverage - I think $7 but I'll have to pull my policy and check when I get home. But that was just to add it to my existing policy, and my existing policy total is pretty high so maybe in scale adding and removing smaller items is less pricey? I know that's how insurance for other stuff works so I guess it's probably true here too... My actual policy through JM is hideously expensive because the most expensive item is valued at *just* over a significant premium jump bracket, so I'm actually looking for a new carrier!

Yes, NC is less, also. I will have to look and be sure whether my add on items are exactly the same rate. Maybe when the total is something like $50k, add-ons are lower.

I looked but my items do not carry individual premiums. There is a total value and then the premium for that amount. It is about $1 per hundred and an extra $25. Mine is with Chubb. I am afraid they may drop me if I keep changing my e-ring!

 

[Dancing Fire]

I insure my engagement ring. My premium is very low, only about $150 a year or something, and I would need to pay that for 100 years for my insurance premium to equal the cost of my ring.

I don't insure anything else, and as a "rule of thumb" likely would not insure anything under $3k. My insurance for my e-ring covers a certain amount of unscheduled jewelery anyways.

DS: It costs less to add something to an already really high premium than it would be to insure the item on its own.

That has not been the case with the insurance companies I have used. It is a straight amount per hundred dollars of coverage. In my area, it is about $1 per $100 of value.

now that sounds fair,but they quoted me $275 per $10K of coverage which i can't afford to pay.

 

[stargurl78]

I only have my e-ring and my studs insured. My e-ring because it's my most expensive jewelry item and my studs because I have a bad habit of losing earrings (and I think they are my second most expensive jewelry item). I have sold a lot of my RHRs but the ones I do have are less than $1K and none of them are insured.

 

[0-0-0]

For pieces you wear regularly, I don't think it makes sense not to insure if annual insurance premiums are less than 2% of replacement cost. For pieces that sit in a safe, I don't think it makes sense to insure unless they are really expensive items that make up a huge portion of your net worth (especially if they sit in the same safe).

 

[TravelingGal]

I live in LA. My friend's house got broken into twice. I also am a klutz and bang my rings against all sorts of stuff (especially my right hand).

I now only insure 3K and above, although my bezel studs are on my insurance plan because earrings are so easy to lose (and in fact, I did so once but found it.) I have Chubb and it's pricey, but I love the peace of mind. That being said, if I were to lose my stuff, my most expensive items are not replaceable to me. I wouldn't even try to make copies of what I had, so the cash payout is key for me to lessen the pain.

 

[justginger]

I'm wrestling with the idea of insurance myself. Being in Australia...it sucks for insurance. I think I pay an extra $350/year for my $15k ering. I haven't even added Poppy to my policy, nor ANY of the diamond necklaces or earrings I have. Heck, my loose diamonds are actually UNABLE to be covered. And...to make it even worse...my insurance company won't cover more than a certain percent of my contents as jewelry. So for example if I have $75,000 of jewelry covered, I *must* have $250,000 total of contents insurance (no more than 30% of my contents can be declared portable items). What a joke - don't they know I have nice jewelry because I haven't spent money on any of my other belongings?!

For those who have Chubb or JM in the States - do they provide overseas coverage? I'm wondering if, since I'm still a citizen/resident of the States, if I can get American insurance to cover me around the world.

 

[LibbyLA]

FYI, JM has a vault designation. You can insure items that are kept in the vault for a 75% discount and you are allowed to have them out of the vault for up to 60 days a year. You do have to notify JM before you remove them and when you return them. Makes it more palatable to insure items that are seldom worn and kept in a safe deposit box most of the time.

liz

 

[GirlyGirl]

I insure my jewelry because:

I wear them often.
I am not careful. There is a good chance of damage.
I can be forgetful. There is a good chance of losing something.
They might get stolen.