Watch Hire Bespoke Insurance?

samjlevy

Hi,

So I don't know if anyone can assist.

We currently do wedding hire for suits and shoes, either in our store or via our website and on a courier service. We are looking at offering a watch hire product on to our website, where people can hire watches for a special day, or a special weekend. These will mainly be sent out by a courier and picked up by a courier a few days later. Average watch value is between £2k and all the way up to around £60k.

We are really struggling to find an insurance company that can assist with a policy.

If anyone could recommend an insurance company that may be able to offer a policy, I would be extremely grateful.

Regards,

Sam

paddyandstumpy

Is this a new thing your company is looking to do, or an existing function?

If the latter, what sort of claims experience have you had over the last 3 years?

What sort of security do you (plan to) take against the watches?

I work for a Lloyds broker and could very easily get something underwritten, but would require claims experience and sight of what liabilites are placed on the receipient of the watch for the hired duration.

forgotmyname

Your going to post a watch costing upto £60k?

Which postal service offers insurance for that much? I would check their cover limits.

What facilities do you have to check the hirers ID?

Nasqueron

I deal with a couple of couriers and their enhanced liability limit is around £15000 each and they don't offer it on certain products like laptops. I'd check that as well

forgotmyname

Yeah, i couldnt find any for more than that either, the max most of them goto is £10,000.

Guessing a bespoke delivery service and hand deliver them yourself or an employee? Maybe said employee is also a security guard who stays close all day the same way some jewellers use when they let stars wear priceless items.

samjlevy

Thanks for the replies.

Anything over the value of £10,000 will be hand delivered.

In regards to the policy, this is a brand new venture for us, and no one else is doing it. There is a few firms in the US offering a similar service. We do however, have experience in the watch industry.

Really struggling to find someone who can underwrite it.

paddyandstumpy

It does sound fairly high risk, what's to stop the hirer just "losing" it?

Speak to a High Net Worth Broker who is also a Lloyds Broker, they'll get you a bespoke policy, but you'll pay premium for it I'd have thought.

dacouch

paddyandstumpy wrote: »

It does sound fairly high risk, what's to stop the hirer just "losing" it?

Speak to a High Net Worth Broker who is also a Lloyds Broker, they'll get you a bespoke policy, but you'll pay premium for it I'd have thought.

As you said, Lloyd's is the market for this.

It will be insurable, although I don't think the OP will want to pay the sort of premium it will generate.

I can see the OP receiving lots of empty envelopes from customers unless they use a courier akin to DX

forgotmyname

Will the person delivering and collecting the item know the difference between what was sent and the item being returned?

Find which watches are very good replicas and do a switch? BBC Fake Britain show raided a warehouse with watches, they took it to a guy and he had to open them up to tell the difference with some of them. Even the smooth sweep was correct.