MSE News: Get engaged on Valentine's Day? Don't forget to insure your ring

Former_MSE_Helen

Without insurance and an up-to-date valuation, you could be at risk of not being able to claim...

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Get engaged on Valentine's Day? Don't forget to insure your ring




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tripled

I'm surprised at MSE perpetuating the marketing from De Beers that a ring should cost two months salary! Indeed, they upped it to two months in the 80's after the success of their one month campaign a few decades before. Conventional wisdom or folly?

In the UK, one survey put the average spend as around three weeks of the average wage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27371208

OnanTheBarbarian

Naah, Lizzy Duke's, £150.00 but I was mis-sold the extended warranty, what should I do?

JimmyTheWig

followed conventional wisdom and spent a couple of months' salary on it.

I don't think that there is any wisdom, conventional or otherwise, in spending two months' salary on a ring - especially for a couple just starting out their lives together.

Was this a guest comment? If so, it doesn't say so.

tripled

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I don't think that there is any wisdom, conventional or otherwise, in spending two months' salary on a ring - especially for a couple just starting out their lives together.

Was this a guest comment? If so, it doesn't say so.

I don't think it is, it's by their "Senior Insurance Writer". I agree with you entirely - I appreciate it's probably a throwaway line, but a supposedly money-saving site should be more careful about perpetuating myths like that.

InsideInsurance

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I don't think that there is any wisdom, conventional or otherwise, in spending two months' salary on a ring - especially for a couple just starting out their lives together.

Without nit picking over their exact choice of words I would argue that there is the common "urban myth", for want of a better phrase, that an engagement ring is "supposed" to be 2 months salary of the guy.

As per the post above, it is credited to being a marketing message from De Beers which when originally run was 1 months salary and after the success of that it was repeated but with 2 months salary. By all accounts before their first campaign a diamond ring for an engagement was a new concept and hadnt caught on

The reality in the UK is lower than it, not sure what it is in the USA but there is an increasing trend there for "upgrading" the ring periodically to ensure it remains appropriate for your highest standard of living and you arent "stuck" with a $200 ring bought as teenagers when your hubby is now earning $500k a year

JimmyTheWig

tripled wrote: »

I don't think it is, it's by their "Senior Insurance Writer".

Yes, you're right. I first read it as being by a somewhat random "insurance writer". But I agree - it's an MSE piece.

OnanTheBarbarian

I believe their "senior insurance writer" has recently left

JimmyTheWig

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Without nit picking over their exact choice of words I would argue that there is the common "urban myth", for want of a better phrase, that an engagement ring is "supposed" to be 2 months salary of the guy.

I think the words here are worth nit-picking over.
"Conventional wisdom" gives it credibility.
"Urban myth" is much more neutral.
Personally, if writing for MSE, I'd have gone for something like "mis-conception" - i.e. something deliberately negative.

rs65

If it's not been recently valued your insurance provider won't take into account any increases in the market, so you'll just be paid an amount based on the last time it was valued.

Is that correct?

InsideInsurance

It makes it harder to argue the case but certainly not impossible

These things are not helped by jewelry valuers being a pain and generally refusing to value something based on someone elses description of the item in case the other valuers miss judged the quality of the stone/ metals etc