For an auto: The VIN, required by law, is a coded description of all the car's details. It appears in many places on the vehicle and in the documents--sales docs, registration, and insurance policy. If damage or a total loss occurs, the insurer and car owner have a detailed record of what was insured.
For jewelry: No VIN. Insurers must rely on appraisals and lab reports for detailed descriptions of gems and jewelry. Appraisals are crucial! If an auto VIN looked like the one pictured above, you'd be very suspicious, wondering what info was being concealed. At JIBNA we sometimes see appraisals that make us think of such a butchered VIN—jewelry appraisals with "holes" where there should be information. ACORD/JISO 18 is a tool we use to inform the agent and the insured when an appraisal has "holes" where important information should be given. We enter on the form all information given on the appraisal submitted, then our system highlights important details that are missing. Complete details allow JIBNA to appropriately insure the item and, if a loss occurs, to supply an accurate replacement. Yes, there are many insurers who do not require the details that JIBNA does. In fact, most insurers don't even read the appraisal. They just check that it has a date and a valuation. But once a loss occurs, perhaps years later, descriptive details can be hard to retrieve. Lack of important details means the insurer has to guess, and the replacement may not be like the original jewelry the insured so carefully chose. Why leave it up to guesswork later, when the appraiser can—and should—supply all the details upfront? If you receive such a highlighted form from JIBNA, discuss it with the insured. Explain how a detailed appraisal is in their interest, and they should insist on one. They can show their appraiser the highlighted form 18 supplied by the insurer and ask the appraiser to fill in the missing info. ACORD/JISO 18, the Jewelry Appraisal & Claim Evaluation form, is available free of charge from the Jewelry Insurance Standards Organization, www.jiso.org Interested in exploring a jewelry policy or any other insurance policy? We can help. Click the button below to submit a new policy/current policy review and a member of our team will be in contact with you. |
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