Insuring an engagement ring

Chris2685

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I have recently proposed to my girlfriend, and gave her a platinum diamond engagement ring. The "replacement cost" valuation of the ring is £2825 (not sure why, because I actually only paid £1500 for it).

I would like to know how is the best way to go about insuring it.

We are planning on moving into our new home within the next couple of months if all goes well, so I was wondering if it would be best to insure it on the home and contents then, or whether to insure it seperately.

I used http://www.thmarch.co.uk/ to obtain a quote, and have been quoted £52.50 (including tax) per annum. Is this a regular amount, or would I save by getting it insured as part of the home and contents?

I want the ring to be insured for damage, theft and loss ideally.

Thanks for any help if anyone has any to give!

Quentin

The only way to know is phone up your insurers and ask. If you haven't got contents insurance yet, do "virtual" quotes with and without the ring and you'll see the difference.

The silver lining to all this expense is this is just the engagement ring not the wedding ring so you have time to back out, get the ring back, sell it and spend the money on a holiday of debauchery to help you get over it!

Chris2685

haha, as fun as that sounds, I think my girlfriend fiancee would be devastated!
I have looked at some of the home and contents covers, but most don't appear to include damage cover. From what I have read on this forum, it seems that including items above a certain level can add between £7 and £10 a month to your household insurance premium, which makes it more sensible to go for the jewellery cover..

Any other thoughts?

morg_monster

Have just been in this situation myself. OH proposed to me in paris with a very similar sounding ring... now did he think about getting it insured before he popped the question? Of course not! Did he think that as we were on holiday it wouldn't have been covered by travel insurance? Of course not!!!

Anyway, I said yes, and our house insurance was ready to be renewed a couple of weeks later conveniently.
What you need is personal posessions cover - this covers items out of the home, which is the vital bit. Really, the likelihood of your ring being lost or damaged in the home is pretty minimal (though obv theft is the most likely thing in-house). Jewellery cover in-house only is very cheap but isn't what you want.
Re getting personal possession cover, you may find you need to specify the item or send in a valuation certificate if it is over a certain level. In the future, they may require you to get it revalued - platinum in particularly is generally increasing in value (finite resource) so insurance costs will rise, but its an investment...!

Adding a £2500 ring to our Personal possession cover added about £100 to our contents-only insurance policy with morethan... but we shopped around and changed to LV instead for little more than we'd been paying with morethan. (we'd only gone with morethan last year due to a good quidco deal). on that point, I found I couldn't go through quidco when you need to add items like this to your policy. Irritating. Anyway, maybe try LV.

We didn't need to send the valuation in but did have to specify "Solitaire diamond engagement ring".

good luck

Chris2685

Thanks for the response.

You say it cost you roughly £100 more per year to get the ring added to the insurance?

Surely it would be cheaper for me to just get cover for the ring alone then? (£52.50 per year)?

Oscar_The_Grouch

It differs from insurer to insurer. Some will charge you a lot less than the jeweller and some more. Your only option really is to shop around. Personally, I think both £52.50 and £100 are silly prices. Morg did say that she got a new policy for little more than they were paying in the previous year and I assume that she means the price with LV including the ring compared to the price with MoreThan without the ring.

Shop around!! See what you can get.

If all else fails, come and work in the insurance industry and get a discount off your policy from your employers!!

wishiwasarichgirl

I had a platinum & diamond ring of about the same value added to my policy for £12 for the rest of the policy (6 months)

Kavanne

My e ring cost £30 PA to add to direct line insurance. I am not sure how it changed the premium with my new policy as it was included in the intial quote. I have 2 rings of a similar value to yours and insured with RBS (But with a staff discount so not really very representative unfortunately).

My local independent jeweller recommended TH March but I think that might just be because they get a commission lol

morg_monster

Oscar you are dead right. LV with ring was about same price as morethan without. with LV I reckon the ring cost about an extra £40-50 on top of £100 policy - by far the cheapest for us.

That thmarch place looks pretty good - but do shop around. I'm going to save that website for the future. One plus with having it on our house insurance is that now (i think) other things like ipods etc (under £1000) which we take out of the house are now covered - we had never bothered with that before.

Chris2685

OK, thanks for the info... I guess the question for me now really is do I pay the £52.50 and have peace of mind from this minute forward, or do I wait until we get a house and get it insured as part of our house contents, which could take several weeks and who knows what will happen to the ring by then...
My conclusion is that I could save a few quid by waiting, but not really enough for me to lose my peace of mind... So I am going to get it insured seperately, I can always change it again next year!

JohnnyBARNET

Hi guys and gals, interesting thread.

I proposed to my lovely GF in October and lucky enough for me, she has a family heirloom diamond which we are having made into a her engagement ring.

It has just been valued at just under £12,000 and TH march gave us a quote of £316 for a year of insurance!!:eek:

I guess we should check our home insurance, will we be able to sort something out even if it is not due for renewal?

:beer: