Given the T&Cs applied to most insurance policies how many of you keep on top of having an appropriately rated safe to store you watches, not worn at the time, when away from home?
I’ve recently had to get some new valuations for a couple of my watches (insurer insists this be done every three years) and found the new valuations meant I was over the valuables rating for the safe.
It's all down to probabilities of a scrote getting into your safe and running off with your watch.Originally Posted by SydR
My safe is years out of date, so I am not insured. However I am insured when wearing the watch in my home or anywhere in the world. But I MUST be wearing the watch so I am only insuring myself against being mugged.
Returning to the safe, It took 3 men of gorilla proportions half an hour to get the safe into my house and now it is bolted down with an 1/2" raw plug onto a concrete floor. It is a solid 2" thick steel job and no one is going to get into it. So I am prepared to stay with it and still feel safe.
In a way I think I am self insuring against theft but the chances of a scrote running off with my watches must be almost non existent. Thus I can sleep easily in my bed.
This doesn't apply to me as I've nothing really in my house worth going to the trouble of getting a safe to keep.... But I guess one thing that occurs to me is that if someone broke in and found a safe they might be tempted to then force you to open it? Or return or whatever... Do you have it well hidden?
If they put a gun to your head, you would be well advised to open any safe or show them where the jewellery is kept. However the chances of that happening are remote indeed.
Of course, and agreed unlikely as presumably it is drug addicts rather than master minds that are carrying out casual burglaries. I guess my point is that a safe needs to be well hidden presumably? I'm sure the discovery of a massive safe is the kind of info that would be passed on to to others?
Sorry off topic here and I'll leave it at that, guess I'm just asking do people ideally have a safe installed as part of some building work where it can be reasonably well hidden
That is something I have never thought about and it is a good point.
The safe is only as strong as the person who holds the key. If a couple of guys point a shotgun at you and say, "open the safe" what are you going to do?
‘My wife has the key’
Cheers..
Jase
I have a watch box of cheapish watches out in easy view with the logic that they will grab these from the middle floor (I'm on the top) and think that these are the watches.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
Mine, to date, was a pretty basic affair but acquisitions over the past three years have driven up the value therein. Space inside is now a little tight too.
I guess on that latter part alone I plan to look for something bigger and future proof it at the same time.
There are people who, when going on holiday or simply not wearing a valuable watch for whatever reason, will put them into a respectable pawnbroker for a loan of perhaps £100. This will usually then see their watch kept in appropriate, commercial safes that comply with their home insurance which typically extends to these circumstances.
Some will borrow as little as £10, but there are technical reasons why it may be better not to borrow less than £100.
Safe storage may then be enjoyed for perhaps £7.50 a month.
H
^^^^
Good tip.
Mitch
Interesting Haywood I had never thought of using a Pawnbroker if going away for an extended period of time.
Can you elaborate why for technical reasons it may be better not to borrow less than £100?
Last edited by boring_sandwich; 14th October 2020 at 20:37.
I suppose more important would be that I forbid anyone from doing this with a "buy-back" store. The lack of regulatory and legislative protections in place for them put their clients in a much worse position, typically their terms are only about a month long and they should be avoided. Pawnbrokers, on the other hand, will be authorised and [incredibly rigorously] regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The £100 suggestion relates to the thresholds that typically require letters to be sent before an item is sold if not redeemed and determine whether the item of unredeemed remains your property until sold. Essentially, these won't apply provided you remember to reclaim your watch(es) before the expiry of the original contract. There are plenty of clients who are confident enough that they will remember, and thus borrow only £10. Let us hope that their beloved are aware of what they have done, lest anything should happen to them.
Last edited by Haywood_Milton; 15th October 2020 at 09:20.
Are you languorously stroking a white cat as you type this?
Every safe can be broken in to given enough time and effort but a poor safe is still more secure than keeping your valuables in a sock drawer or on the dresser in a watch box as far as I am concerned.
An alternative to the safes often sold in shops / security suppliers are a gunsafe. They are police / insurance rated and large enough to store everything you might want stored. They tend to be a fair bit cheaper as well. I picked a brand new one up for less than £150.
You must have an awful lot of watches if you running out of space in a safe.
The watches can go in pouches, The papers could also go in the safe, but I wouldn't bother putting the boxes in there.
Fairly small safe, 12 litre capacity.
I got a very, very, good deal on job lot of the Rolex service boxes, aka coffins, a few years ago and use them to store all £1k+ watches in them whilst in the safe. Paper go in too but boxes sit elsewhere. There’s also a number of jewellery items, rings stored in small boxes, necklaces stored in sleeves. It all mounts up and fills space quickly.
I’ve dymo labelled up all the coffins so its easy to find the one I want.
Current insurer wants every item, valued over £1k, we want covered inside and outside the home itemised and stored in a safe when they are left a home whilst its unoccupied. I would change but we did have a claim whilst with them about 10 years ago are they handled it brilliantly, paying out in 5 days.
Last edited by SydR; 14th October 2020 at 20:58.
If they are not giving you the cover that you want or need then find someone who will.
There are plenty of good insurers out there, would you keep with the same car insurer because they handled a claim you had 10 years ago?
I have learnt that any idea of customer loyalty meaning anything went out the window long ago.
I haven’t been with them throughout those 10 years. I only moved back to them around three years ago when I moved home and they provided the best overall cover at a sensible price and haven’t screwed me over on the two renewals since.
I don't have contents insurance, and mostly keep my watches on the bathroom window ledge. I live in a shared house with like 5 other people. Different worlds.
There’s no stipulation in my insurance that my safe needs to be hidden, just appropriately rated and fastened down. Oddly my bike insurance has no requirement for them to be locked but they cannot be visible from outside.
My contents covers up to £15k single article and no need for a safe or any of that malarkey.
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Who are you insured with? Is it not likely to have reduced premiums with additional safeguards / precautions?
Last edited by SydR; 14th October 2020 at 20:06.
Marks and Spencer (I think they use Aviva) and there was no requirement to demonstrate security measures beyond confirming 5 lever locks and locking windows - so assume no reduction available if I have attack dogs with bees in their mouths, or other additional safeguards.
It was also so cheap I wasn’t rrrsed about getting another 5% off
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I struggled getting decent insurance on my watches and ended up striking a deal with a local jeweller who has a safe like Fort Knox. I buy him a few beers during the month and he stores and has them insured for me. Saves me having to worry about them being left in my house.
I believe burglary and crime are low in many area of the UK. The fear of crime is excessive. I don’t insure my possessions (apart from the house!) and feel comfortable about that. Especially as insurance companies stack the odds strongly in their favour with unreasonable demands.
Last edited by paskinner; 15th October 2020 at 09:15.
Back on topic for a moment - I would strongly suggest that you consider changing your insurer, SydR.
As with notenoughwrists, my policy also insures any individual item up to £15k, has no requirement for a safe and has no need for individual valuations. It’s AXA rather than M&S, but is a near-identical policy.
The idea of getting (and paying for) individual valuations on 20-odd watches every year is not appealing!
Simon
My current insurance requires revaluation of valuables worth in excess of £5k every three years not annually.
There are more benefits than downsides with my current insurance. I was with AXA five to six years ago but some changes in their terms made then unsuitable for my situation.
Slight diversion but it is always worth a reminder to check that you are not storing the GPS location of your valuable property within the Exif metadata tags of images that you post online.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
Good reminder. How does one check this?
Since this was discussed on a thread on here months ago, I now post screenshots on my photos instead of the photos themselves, on the basis this will remove any photo details. But I’ve never checked.
A lot of photograph applications will display the Exif information (e.g. 'The Photo Investigator' on iPhone and 'Photos' on a Macbook), as will some hosting sites such as flickr ('Show Exif' button towards the bottom of the image viewing screen). 'Get Info' on a Mac OS will also display the metadata.
As dkpw says, it is best to disable the location tagging at source.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
If you're using a smartphone, most cameras have a setting to disable location tagging. You can also go to the phone's system preferences and enable location details for specific apps, only when they're active.
David
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
I have checked images I have uploaded on other forums and it appears that Tapatalk strips out Exif data during the upload.
Good to hear, makes things a lot simpler.
You definitely get what you pay for. This is almost embarrassingly bad https://youtu.be/i7g-TvczpSw
And even larger safes are not immune https://youtu.be/-RlwGkO0hxE
You can insure your house and the content, but you should declare if you have watches above 4,000 gbp.
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More accurate would be to state: “You should declare watches above the value that the insurer requires”
Read the Policy and the T&C.
What about sticking them in an unmarked box in the loft? If you rotate every week or more, it shouldn’t be too much of a burden to pop up there when you want a change? Can’t imagine many burglars go into the loft, especially if the house alarm is sounding.
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