I have claimed for my lost engagement ring thru direct line insurance and have filled in all the relevent paperwork and paid £200 excess. They passed me over to their jewelry assessor a company called LMG. They have in turn asked for more information including a photo if possible of the ring - which again I have supplied.

They have now given me a valuation and 3 options which are -

1 a voucher for the valution for the Signet group which are H Samuel, Ernest Jones or Leslie Davis or

2 - a remake of the ring by one of their personal jewellers or

3 the cash equivalent but the cash is only half of the valuation and doesn't even cost the price of the ring way back in 2003!!

So - do I have to accept these conditions? - I have looked at Ernest Jones and H Samuels websites but I don't see anything I love there however I have seen a ring I really like within the valution but with a different jewellers. I have agreed to get the personal jeweller out to see if she can help me.

She is booked to come to my house to look at designs etc and perhaps make a new ring for me but on speaking to friends about this they have said that their experience with the "personal jeweller" was a rip off and the jewelry offered no where near the quality they would have gotten from local jewellers!

Do I accept there is no way round this? I am already really down about losing my engagement ring - that I took months to choose - due to the fact that my hands are not the delicate hands of female kind but almost like man hands so a solitaire would look lost on them - unless I had a good few thousand to spend - which I don't! Any help would be appreciated...

Hello and welcome to CAG.

You've posted in a forum about CAG itself so I'll move you to our insurance forum and leave you a link to follow.

Our insurance guys will know the answers to your questions.

My best, HB

Direct Line are correct in what they have offered. They deal with such claims on a daily basis and it is a standard acceptable way of dealing with them.

Jewellery sold in high street shops is subject to a massive mark up in price, compared to the actual costs in making an item. a £3k engagement ring may only actually cost £500 to have made using almost identical materials.

When a claim is made the Insurers are only required to replace an item or pay in cash what it would cost them to replace . They will never pay you the high street retail price of a piece of jewellery.

If you visit the Financial Ombudsman site and search for claims they have looked at, you will see that Insurers will only have to pay a higher replacement value (within policy limits) where an item is trully unique ( a one off piece), so cannot be replaced easily, even if a personal Jeweller was to try to make a replacement. The unique item might be one made originally by a famous renowed Jeweller using tecniques that could not be replicated. Or the item of jewellery included a rare stone, which cannot be obtained.

So unless your engagement ring was particularly rare or specialist, you will have to work with what Direct Line are offering.

Meant to come back to you ages ago to thank you for your reply but been so busy! Anyway the update is I have accepted the Signet Voucher card and have chosen a new ring but I still cannot understand why this way of treating a claim for jewellry is acceptable by law? If my sofa gets burnt then the insurance company will either replace or give me the cost of replacing it - even though I might have paid £1000 for it and to make it is only £500! Also I cannot understand WHY they would not give the retail cost of jewellry as the retail market is where I will need to go to replace it? So I still think this is a swizz for the general public to take out insurance when the insurance company can then dictate where the replacement has to be bought from and the cash equivelant is much lower than the actual original cost of the jewellry that was lost/stolen. The general public work in the retail market unless they work in the industry etc so I don't know why the insurance company wouldn't just let you pick a ring from a local jewellers up to the valuation given and then they pay the jewellers?? Again though - thank you for the explanation you provided.

Meant to come back to you ages ago to thank you for your reply but been so busy! Anyway the update is I have accepted the Signet Voucher card and have chosen a new ring but I still cannot understand why this way of treating a claim for jewellry is acceptable by law? If my sofa gets burnt then the insurance company will either replace or give me the cost of replacing it - even though I might have paid £1000 for it and to make it is only £500! Also I cannot understand WHY they would not give the retail cost of jewellry as the retail market is where I will need to go to replace it? So I still think this is a swizz for the general public to take out insurance when the insurance company can then dictate where the replacement has to be bought from and the cash equivelant is much lower than the actual original cost of the jewellry that was lost/stolen. The general public work in the retail market unless they work in the industry etc so I don't know why the insurance company wouldn't just let you pick a ring from a local jewellers up to the valuation given and then they pay the jewellers?? Again though - thank you for the explanation you provided.

It is mostly a question of money and fraud prevention. You can claim for jewellery and it is an easy thing to sell the replacement to get cash. But if they replaced a Sofa for example at retail, you are not likely to find someone who will pay you anywhere near the value of the item.

Most claims are now settled on a replacement basis and not cash. Insurers will negotiate with retailers and obtain a discount. So you are never going to get the retail price for you to go out yourself to the high street to buy an item directly.

Jewellery is subject to a massive mark up by Jewellers, with the replacement cost being nowhere near what the retail price is.

You may not like it, but the way Insurers act is legal and will continue to be the case until someone takes it to court gaining a higher court judgement. This is never going to happen.

ok - again thanks - I do understand what you're saying and as I say in the end it has turned out fine for me but because I loved my original engagement ring I really wanted to find a ring to full in love with again and I just felt that because I was limited to one jewellers chain I wouldn't get this. I didn't want to buy a ring that at this value that was alright - I wanted to buy a ring that I loved and eventually I have found a ring that I loved - so all is good. Many thanks again.

ok - again thanks - I do understand what you're saying and as I say in the end it has turned out fine for me but because I loved my original engagement ring I really wanted to find a ring to full in love with again and I just felt that because I was limited to one jewellers chain I wouldn't get this. I didn't want to buy a ring that at this value that was alright - I wanted to buy a ring that I loved and eventually I have found a ring that I loved - so all is good. Many thanks again.

This was down to you expectations not being met, until you actually saw a ring that they Insurers would pay for. This is a regular occurence and I expect right at this minute Insurance claims handlers are having this argument with policyholders. The Jewellers the Insurers use can offer a huge range of replacement items and in most cases people will be very satisfied.