Getting rings valued for insurance purposes?

You can take the ring to any jeweller who does valuations and they will usually send the ring off to be assessed (some smaller independant firms do do in house valuations or some, like Ernest Jones do valuation days and bring the expert in)

They will assess the ring and prepare a valuation certificate which will be posted to you.

Mine was £1500 in a half price sale and my valuation came back at the full £3K with no problems (well £3.1K actually but hey lol) the insurance company won;t even quibble

(i was a Jeweller and i used to work in insurance too!)

Agree - take it to a local jewellers and they can arrange this for you. Some independent jewellers can assess themselves, our local one can for example. I got two rings valued for my mum last year. Cost £45 for a joint report which details all the relevant characteristics including photo's and value.

You could take it to the jewellery quarter in Birmingham? There's tons of shops that will be able to value it for you

Hi MadamRed

I hope that you got sorted out okay, but for the benefit of those finding this thread with a similar question......

There are effectively three options open to you, irrespective of where you live (UK, anyway).

Option 1: Take it to your preferred jeweller. They will do the appraisal and valuation for you if they are suitably qualified. If not, then they will most likely send it out either to an Independent Jewellery Valuer or one of the two large outfits that do valuations for all the big chains of jewellers.
This is a convenient service because you can drop off and collect the item(s) at your convenience. One drawback is that you will be without your ring for quite a while.

Option 2: Some of the larger chains of jewellers hold "Valuation Days". This is where the jeweller brings in an outside valuer to attend face-to-face with the jewellery owner in the store. You will need to book a slot on the specific day of the event.

Option 3: One other option is to deal with an Independent Jewellery Valuer. These professionals are very often behind the valuation reports you receive from a Jeweller, but not always. Many of these Valuers also deal with private clients directly. You can either attend their office and have the work done right there and then, or some can come to your home and perform all the work there for you.

Regarding the location of jewellers and independent valuers:
There are three main sources for this information. All three require the valuers to meet certain criteria, qualifications, etc.
Jewellery Valuers Association (JVA) - A trade association for jewellers and valuers
Institute of Registered Valuers (IRV) - A trade association for jewellers and valuers
Jewellery Appraisers of the World (JAW) - A consumer's directory of only valuers.

In the spirit of transparency, I should point out that I am the Administrator of JAW.

I hope this is of some assistance to you.

Kind regards
Adrian

You did well to get the discount. There's a bit difference between retail value, insurance value and actual resale value.

Retail value and insurance value tend to be high - the insurer is covering the price of needing to replace it from a shop. The actual resale value is much lower.

My ring was 750 pounds discounted at the time from 1500 in a special sale. Now the same ring is being sold for 2K. It's realistic resale value might be 400/500 pounds, and it's the same for most rings. Getting the big discount at the start ensures you didn't pay too much above the resale value.

Not that we ever would want to part with our rings!

The reason I'm saying this is that what you want when you're asking for a valuation is an insurance valuation, not an actual resale valuation.