Help ! Jewelry Stolen by Home Repair Person and Insurance Won't Pay

This is not your insurance companies fault- all policies work that way. There are two basic ways of covering jewelry. Your basic policy covers theft, period. It makes sense if you think about it. Can you imagine what your premiums would be if we all had to pay for every time someone lost a ring?! Any one could simply say they lost a ring/necklace, etc and get paid for it. If something is actually stolen, you then need to contact the police. This prevents a lot of fraud. A lot of people are willing to say something was stolen but won't make a police report because they don't want to get arrested for filing a false report. Again, this prevents fraud. "Mysterious disappearance" simply means that you don't know when it went missing so can't say it was stolen. However, if you feel strongly that it was stolen, call the police and file a report. The insurance co. will more likely honor that if you can name a time and place (ex. Saturday when the repair company was here, etc).

The second way to get your jewelry covered is to have a special rider protecting either a particular piece (ex. wedding ring) or an amount covering all of your jewelry (this is better if you have a lot of jewelry). This special rider is an additional cost above your policy cost but it protects the jewelry from any loss (ex. dropped it down the sink).

I can appreciate that you feel angry at your ins. company but they are not the bad guys here. Insurance companies have to limit certain types of coverage because of fraud. You should be angry at your home repair person and seriously consider filing charges. Good luck.

have you ever claimed lost jewelry before?
Sometime depending on how many claims of this type they become a lil less trusting. The other thing is that is why you have an insurance agent they are there to help you and the proof of weather your agent is good or not will depend on his response to assisting you in getting your coverage if again it's your first claim of this type...he should go to bat for you. I've been an agent in a previous life time so if you want to contact me off line feel free.

V.

Maybe you will have to mysteriously drop your insurance company the next time it's renewal comes up. If you have a police report and believe it was stolen then they need to show you the exact part of the contract that says it is not covered. And if you had nice jewelry and will in the future you will have read between the fine lines. That sounds like a bunch of balogna to me, but they always have two words that eliminate them helping you out. (The insurance companies that is).

Your policy will have a limit as to how much jewelery will be covered, and a deductible will have to be met. It is only going to cover your jewelery if it was destroyed with your house (i.e. burnt to the ground), or if you have a police report and an accompanying investigation. If you had a jewelery rider, it might be different, but otherwise all policies are pretty much the same. Sucks, but it protects all of us from crazy claims and higher premiums.