AIGR, Inc.: gemstones

Showing posts with label gemstones. Show all posts

Friday, August 11, 2017

How much should my jewelry be worth in order to need an appraisal?

At AIGR, we will tell you if we think an item would be valued at less than $500.00 retail. We normally recommend that such an item not be appraised. Some insurance agents tell their customers that they don’t need to appraise anything under $1500.00, $2000.00, or even $5000.00. Sometimes this is not good advice. You may have coverage for up to $5000.00 for jewelry included in contents of your home, but if you have multiple rings and chains that are each worth hundreds of dollars, they can easily add up to more than $5000.00. It never hurts to have more documentation. It is tempting to save money on appraisal fees, but the cost of an appraisal is probably less than the sales tax that you paid for the piece of jewelry. Sometimes with estates, every item of jewelry needs to be documented and valued, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Why can’t I just give the store receipt from purchasing my jewelry to the insurance company instead of paying for an appraisal?

If you have a loss, the burden of proof is on you to show the insurance company how much you have been damaged. Many jewelry store receipts use generic descriptions without even mentioning the total carat weight of the gemstones in a piece of jewelry, let alone the quality of the gemstones. Many insurance companies will not write you a check for what you paid for a piece of jewelry or even what it is appraised for. They want you to go to their jeweler to get a replacement. In order to get a replacement equal to what was lost, you need a detailed description of the jewelry including identification and grading of gemstones.