Claim payout in vouchers!

rockyb_2

We were burgled recently and after discussions with the insurers jewler and agreeing the replacement value, they have now offered the value in vouchers to national chains. the vouchers are for a lot of money we would never buy that much jewlrey (most of the stolen was left to us) when asked they said we can have cash but only 60% of the agreed value!! we are furious at this has anyone else had this problem and did they manage to get the full cash value.

mattymoo

Pretty much standard practice as far as I know.
Why not take the vouchers and get some nice watches?

lisyloo

You have insured your jewelry to be replaced and that is exactly what they are doing.
Sorry but you aren't entitled to cash, you are entitled to replacement jewelry.

i_love_it

Yep, as already said, it is standard practice.

nooksky

You could try selling the vouchers on ebay. They usually go for quite near to face value. This is providing they dont have to be spent by you though. HTH!!

amscss

I'm sure I once saw an artice in the Sunday Times money section where someone had been offered vouchers and they managed to get cash instead. I think they had to refer the company to a court ruling where the claimant had been offered vouchers or cash of a lower amount - the ruling was that if they're willing to offer vouchers of say £2000 then the should also be willing to offer cash of the same amount. This is particularly the case if say you had antique jewellery as you usually get vouchers for goldsmiths but they don't sell any antique jewellery so you couldn't replace an item using vouchers.

Here is a page on the financial ombudsman website:

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/10/oct-repair-replace-cash.htm

In particular the paragraph here is interesting:

In some cases, policyholders may not wish to purchase a replacement for the damaged or stolen goods. This may be, for example, because their circumstances have changed, or the object had sentimental value. Where this is the case, we will normally ask the insurer to agree a cash settlement.