Cash instead of replacement

Crater

Advice please. A relative has been burgled and being very elderly now she is opting for cash rather than replacement for some valuables which have been taken.

I know that it's usual for the insurer to pay less in cash than the replacement valuation, as it's usually tied to what they would be charged by their own suppliers. I think this is fair enough.

However I don't know anything about jewellery and silver valuations. The cash offer is a bit over 50% of the valuation. Does that sound right, or a bit low? The insurance company has been pretty good about other things, so I am inclined to trust them but want to be reasonably sure she is getting a fair offer as she is not able to deal with this herself.

Any advice appreciated.

TSx

If this is a large insurer, it wouldn't shock me. Where I work, we have a range of jewellers we can use and the lowest discount we get is 35% - jewellery generally has very high markups!

That said, the offer should only be reduced where they can replace like for like - where they can't, they should be offering the full retail price. There's no harm in asking the question "can you actually replace every item like for like?"

FutureGirl

50% is generally correct.

The company we use give us 25% - 52% on jewellery, so if you had a 'gift card' of £100.00, we'd only pay £75.00 - £48.00 for it, so that's all we'd offer as a cash figure, depending on where the jeweller feels the item can be replaced on like for like basis.

Crater

Thank you both for the insights, makes knowing what to do easier.