Good Evening all,

Just wondering if anyone can recommend a UK based insurance company who cover watches?

Presently on household insurance but as value goes up the premium increases exponentially.

Thanks in advance.

 

most of us go to a safe deposit box. Insurance on individual basis is ££

 

Insurance on collectibles is of absolutely no value until AFTER the stuff is gone! And then it is only of marginal value if you have to take a cash out because rare, hard to find items are difficult/impossible to replace. Even the peace of mind value with insurance is non existent! When you are away from home, how much peace of mind do you get, knowing that the only protection you have against losing your stuff is an insurance policy? That is NO protection whatsoever! That’s how I see it. Buying a safe in 1987 has saved me about $20,000.00 in insurance premiums.

 

OR buy cheap used watches with little marginal value.

 

This is a totally legitimate perspective, and one that aligns with my own for the most part. But some people may still want to insure their watches against theft or fire (including theft when you are wearing a watch), so I do think that the OP's question is valid. In fact, a similar question has been in the back of my mind and I wouldn't mind hearing some first-hand experiences.

I am in the US. Some of my wife's more valuable pieces of jewelry are insured through riders with State Farm, which insures my house. The cost is about 1% of the value per year. Jeweler's Mutual does standalone policies, and I think the premiums are similar. I have not pursued this with my watches, and one concern I have involves appraisals. I have paid for a few appraisals in the past for some Rolex models, and they were simply the MSRP of the "equivalent" new watch. Since most of my collection is vintage, this approach wouldn't make sense overall. I suspect that a legitimate vintage appraiser will charge at lest $50/watch to appraise my vintage watches, maybe more. So now we're talking about thousands of USD in appraisal fees, and of course those appraisals are useless if I sell or trade those watches.

 

“Loss or theft when you are wearing the watch”. I have thought of that as well. Over the 30 plus years of having no insurance on my watches or her jewellery, I have saved about $20.000.00 since I bought a safe. If and when I do lose a watch, or have it stolen, I’ll just buy another out of the premiums I have saved.

So, you are on vacation, and you find a grail item, and you buy it. Part of the cost of that item is the expense of the trip. Like, the insurance company will take that into account? Ya, sure!

As to values on insured items. If an appraiser was to evaluate a vintage piece using MSRP for a close equivalent, and you were to lose that item, the insurance company will tell you to go find another. You have one year to find that watch! If it is a hard to find vintage piece and you find one for, say, 50% of the appraised price, that is all you are eligible to claim! You are way over-insured, and you’ve been wasting your premium money!

I spent 25 years in retail jewellery. 25 years of listening to countless people who have lost or had stuff stolen. Practically every one of them admitted they should have bought a safe, and not bothered with insurance.

 

What you are basically saying is that you are satisfied being self-insured, which again is a totally valid perspective. I am inclined to think the same way, but I recognize that different people have different attitudes towards risk. Like you, I am willing to risk the loss of any given watch that I am wearing. My biggest concern would be a catastrophic fire. In principle, the right safe would mitigate this concern, but it's not practical for me to keep all of my watches in a safe at all times.

You also raise a very good point about the true value of insurance. I am always concerned about whether an insurance company will truly honor a claim in the way that you expect, or whether they will make you jump through all kinds of hoops and look for ways that they can nickel-and-dime you. (To be fair, my actual first-hand experiences with insurance claims have always been positive.)

 

Wrt valuations, you have to keep them up to date.

Those of you lucky enough to be sitting on collections of 321 speedies or ss daytonas, would have to get there re- evaluated every 6 months or so at the moment

So something else to consider.

And as other have hinted, if you are lucky enough to not have had to pay insurance for 5-10 yrs, you now have saved enough up to buy yourself a nice watch!

 

Self insuring is one way to look at things, but realize that $20k isn't a lot if you have to replace a valuable vintage watch...

 

This topic has been dealt with several times in the past:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/insurance-options.63506/#post-794885

https://omegaforums.net/threads/who-do-you-insure-your-uk-collection-with.70813/#post-891550

To re-iterate some of the main points:
- insurance isn’t one-size-fits-all. Different markets are better at different things so you may be asking the “wrong” market to do something they’re not good at, hence why so expensive.
- best and cheapest insurance is typically via a “rider” to your homeowners policy. This is what i do and provides for insurance up to an agreed upon dollar figure ($30,000) for $300 a year with no appraisals required, no deductible (which is significant as your home owners policy may carry a $2,500+ deductible) and is for replacement value. I’m under-insured but also have a safety deposit box and a total loss is unlikely. I’m more worried about a watch and of my wife’s earrings being stolen from my hotel room while on vacation, and this will cover that type of scenario.
- find a good insurance broker to help you

 

I recently went through this in the UK; lots of people recommend Chubb insurance, but the broker I used (Macbeths -http://www.macbeths.co.uk/) said that Chubb came out more expensive than the Home and Legacy cover they arranged. Providing enough cover for the watch collection added just under £1,000 to the renewal cost of my previous (Axa) building & contents policy, though I live in a flood zone so that may complicate things a bit. I've taken out the new H&L flood inclusive policy that also provides much greater cover for the watches than previously.

H&L required that I get a Eurograde 1 safe installed … which is costing about £1,350 in itself...

 

So, we know what you think, but how about the insurance that covers your stuff?

 

What about it would you like to know?

 

I use jewelers mutual, instead of submitting appraisals, in my experience, they have accepted a receipt (or proof of purchase) for valuation purposes.

They seem to offer the most exhaustive coverage, at least on paper.

 

There are high end homeowner products that match or exceed their cover.

 

I think the point about stuff being stolen in the hotel room or when one is a tourist is a fair point. That's the scenario that is most realistic. While in one's home country, the best bet is a strong safe or a safe deposit box at a bank.