What's trending in the world of jewellery?

With the arrival of Valentine’s Day, one’s mind turn to jewellery stores with thoughts of people celebrating this popular day.  In addition to the sales of chocolate and roses, jewellery sales also increase with many people buying their loved ones expensive jewellery, including engagement rings.

Interestingly, according to Facebook, it is the fourth most popular day to get engaged behind Christmas eve, Christmas day and New Year’s Eve! Whilst most of us with probably not get an engagement ring, we got to looking at what’s trending in the world of jewellery right now.

Coloured Gemstones

Coloured Gemstones (especially rubies) are extremely fashionable at the moment, they are also seen as an investment due to their rarity and as a result we are starting to see a rise in their popularity.

Compared to other gems, the classic Burmese ruby is and always has been rare and this ruby has been treated as the quality standard for centuries. These gemstones have become a favourable investment as recent reports demonstrate that there is no significant new production from any of the Burmese sources anymore.

Whilst all gems are considered rare, natural fancy coloured diamonds are extremely rare. For every 10,000 white diamonds, there is just one natural fancy colour diamond. Investors are expanding their portfolios and investing in fancy coloured diamonds, mainly a result of the current unstable political and economic climate.

Whilst investment is a key contribution to the popular demand for coloured diamonds, diamonds remain as fashionable and beautiful as they have always been and therefore highly desirable to many others aside from investors.

Social Media

When a loved one buys you an expensive piece of jewellery many people will rush to tell and show their friends without the consideration of the potential impact this could have on the security of their possessions.

With the use of social media increasing, many people now use this as a way to communicate with their friends and all it takes is for the wrong person to see a picture of your expensive new jewellery, combined with some geographical clues from the geo-tagging function of an app, and they can work out where you live, and more worryingly, whether you might be at home, based on where you’ve tagged yourself.

With this in mind we urge all customers to be aware of the potential result of an innocent photo on social media. To avoid this, review the privacy settings on your social media accounts, or better still, tell and show friends in person, rather than via social media.

Jewellery and insurance

Once expensive jewellery has been purchased it is important it is covered by insurance and to be aware of its insurance value. Many customers do not realise the value of their jewellery items until it is too late, highlighting the importance of having your jewellery valued regularly to avoid the risk of underinsurance.

Being underinsured is a most common problem amongst jewellery claims, as items tend to gain value over the years. It’s important to organise an insurance valuation every 3 – 5 years, but do ensure the jeweller holds an Institute of Registered Valuers (IRV) qualification.

Finally, another important area for customers to think about is the quality of their insurance. Not often a problem for high net worth policies but we still hear about cases where policyholders don’t know the jewellery limits contained within their insurance policy when they need to specify an item of jewellery, and limits can vary significantly between policies. Any items not specified under standard policies may not be covered so customers should always check with their broker or insurance advisor if they are unsure.

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