House contents claim - burglary

G

gotsomenow

Registered User
Messages
160
Hello,

My Mum and Dad had their house broken into during the week, and all of my Mums jewellery was stolen. She had to do out a list of the jewellery for the guards and insurance company and the insurance person visited her already and took details.

I'm really interested to know how the insurance company work out what Mums jewellery was worth. Some of it was very old as my Nana had passed it on.

My mam has ever confidence in her insurance company, but me being a 'doubting Thomas' think that they will come back with an amount not near the value of the jewellery.

What is the normal procedure in these cases, do people that do not know the value of items stolen just take the insurance company's word/offer.

It's probably a very niaive post, but it is not something we have had experience of before.

Thanks

G
 
What sort of value do you think would be on individual pieces? The insurance company will look for proof of value for items above a certain limit (valuation or original receipt). Expensive items (>€1,000?) should have been named individually when the policy was taken out so anything above whatever this limit is for the insurance company may not be covered. I'm curious though as your main question seems to imply that you/your mother doesn't know the value of the items - how do you think the insurance company will be able to work it out? - do you have photographs of each item? I think you're right to be concerned but not because the insurance company will deliberately undervalue the claim but you do have a certain responsibility to prove your loss and its value.
 
Hi Orka,

I understand where you are coming from. Mam didn't have her jewellery valued prior to the burglary, and the insurance claim accessor didn't expect her to have receipts for jewellery passed down, or even jewellery she has bought over a period of 30 years. The claim accessor was really nice, and was very professional according to my Mam, she sat down with Mam (who was still in a state) and asked her to describe each piece. She drew pictures from Mams descriptions. But how can you/do they put a value on something that was bought for say IR£1000 thirty years ago?

Insurance company did not mention that anything over €1000 in value needed to be declared individually on the policy either. Nor did they expect Mam to put a value on the items, they are going to do that with the descriptions Mam gave. The majority of the items would be >€1000. Is this standard practise what you describe Orka?

Thanks

G
 
Often stuff like jewellery and other high valued items are only covered if explicitly specified under the policy - possibly under the "all risks" section. Check the terms & conditions of the policy to see what's covered and what's not.
 
A single article limit is fairly standard for most insurance companies although, from having a quick look at websites, my €1,000 guess was a bit low - seems that €2,600 or 5% of contents sum insured (whichever is greater) is fairly standard as a single article limit. There may also be a limit on what % of contents value can be 'valuables' - e.g. with Hibernian the payout on valuables can't be any more than one-third of the contents sum insured - so if contents are insured for €30,000, no more than €10,000 can be on jewellry, paintings etc.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. The insurance company haven't raised any issues yet, and I hope to God there are none. My Mum has been through enough already.

Scumbag thieves, they can just walk into your house in broad daylight and take years of treasured items from you and then probably use the money they get to fund their drug addictions. argggh
 
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