Valuations are truly amazing.

Just a quick observation on this one. I find it amazing that when someone has something valued for insurance, they never dispute a higher valuation than last time, but always challenge a lower one. A very recent example was a customer that had remembered a valuation from 8 years ago on two items. The first was an 18ct gold bracelet that had risen in price by five times, no problem, not even mentioned. The second article was a Sapphire and Diamond ring valued at £500 less than its previous valuation of £3000, chaos breaks out! I had everything from an incompetent valuer to bad typist thrown at me, but only one item could possibly have been wrong! After explaining the process, comparing with current stock and other measures, I would have come out at a figure slightly less again, but could see how the figure was achievable. It turned out that this previous valuation may have been fictional and the best part of the complaint was "Whenever we have taken this to a jeweller for cleaning they have always said it was a very nice ring". Two points to mention. Firstly "nice" or "bad" are relative. A tramp may think a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows is great whereas someone who is used to Armani suits wouldn't use it to clean their shoes. Secondly, I have never known a jeweller to say "Certainly we will clean your ring for you, its worth £3000 exactly". A final thought is, what if the bracelet was overvalued? This customer could have it index linked on their policy for 20 years, be paying out an extortionate rate to insure it and only get paid its current value at the time if it gets lost. More of a rant this time than useful information, for that I apologise. But do think about valuations and when to challenge them. Damian