Only if your policy has a specific limit for customers' goods - usually described as "goods in trust" - and only up to that limit. Your stock sum insured does not cover it, because the ring is not your stock. When a customer leaves a piece with you for repair, resizing or valuation, you become a bailee: you owe a legal duty to take reasonable care of it, and if it goes missing the burden of proving you did so falls on you, not on the customer.

The two questions to answer this week are: what is my goods-in-trust limit, and how much customer property am I actually holding right now.

Bailment, in one paragraph

A bailment arises whenever you take possession of goods belonging to someone else with their consent, without owning them. A jeweller holding a ring for repair is a bailee for reward - you are being paid for the service - which attracts the higher standard of care.

The feature that matters commercially is the reversed burden of proof. In an ordinary negligence claim the claimant proves you were careless. In bailment, once the customer shows they gave you the goods and you did not give them back, you have to show the loss happened without any failure of reasonable care on your part. "It vanished and we don't know how" is not a defence. It is close to an admission.

That is why the record of what came in, from whom, when, and where it physically sits is not administrative tidiness. It is the evidence you will be asked for.

What "goods in trust" means on a policy

Jewellers Block is the trade's specialist policy, and it distinguishes your own stock from other people's property. QBE's Jewellers' Block proposal form asks separately about the proposer's own stock and about "goods in trust (other than for safe custody), goods on approval, repairs and the likes" - that second category is your customers' rings.

TH March, the National Association of Jewellers' preferred insurance partner, list "stock and goods in trust" as a covered category alongside contents, loss of profits, buildings, pound breach and defective title, liability, theft by staff, professional indemnity and personal accident.

Three things follow:

  1. It is a separate declared figure. If you told your broker your stock was £250,000 and never mentioned the repair bench, your goods-in-trust cover may be nil or nominal.
  2. It is usually a sub-limit. Even where cover exists, it may be capped well below your stock limit - which is fine until the week you are holding four insurance jobs and an eternity ring for restoration.
  3. It is not automatic. Public liability does not do this job. Nor does a general shop policy.

Where cover typically fails

These are the recurring gaps. Read your own schedule against them rather than trusting a summary.

Out-of-safe limits. Most policies cap how much can be out of the safe at any time, and impose warranties on locking up outside business hours. A tray of repairs left in a bench drawer overnight is exactly the scenario the warranty exists to police.

Transit and out-workers. The piece you send to a setter, a polisher or the Assay Office is off your premises. Sending, and the third party's own custody, need cover. Registered post limits are far lower than dealers assume, and a specialist carrier is a different arrangement entirely. The QBE form asks specifically what limit is required for property elsewhere than at the proposer's premises.

Unattended vehicles. Nearly universal exclusion or severe restriction. Goods left in a car, even briefly, even locked, even in a boot, are frequently uninsured.

Security warranties. Proposal forms ask about safe specification, weight, age and street visibility; strong rooms; alarms with hold-up buttons; window glazing, grilles and shutters; key removal outside hours; and window locking procedures. Each answer is a warranty. Breach one and the insurer may decline a loss that had nothing to do with it.

Records conditions. The QBE form asks for confirmation that annual stocktaking takes place and that "proper records of all sales purchases and transactions" are maintained. If you cannot evidence what you were holding, quantifying a claim is your problem.

The practical control

You want to be able to answer three questions in under a minute:

  • What customer property am I holding? Every piece, with an owner.
  • Where is each item right now? Bench, safe, setter, Assay Office, front counter, awaiting collection.
  • What is it worth? Agreed at intake, in writing, with the customer.

That last one prevents the worst kind of dispute. A customer whose ring is lost will value it at what it would cost to replace today, in the way that suits them. A value agreed and signed at drop-off, with photographs, gives everyone a starting point that is not a fight.

Take photographs at intake as a matter of course. Condition photographs also settle the other common dispute, which is not loss but "that scratch wasn't there before".

Uncollected goods

Every workshop accumulates pieces nobody comes back for. You cannot simply sell them: they are still the customer's property and disposing of them is conversion.

The Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 gives a bailee a statutory route. In outline:

  • Serve a written notice to collect - your name and address, sufficient particulars of the goods and where they are held, a statement that they are ready for delivery, and any amount owed.
  • Then serve a notice of intention to sell, specifying the proposed sale date, allowing a period that gives the bailor a reasonable opportunity to take delivery. Where a sum is in dispute, that period is at least three months.
  • You cannot proceed while you have notice that the bailor is disputing or refusing to pay in a way that relates to the goods.

The Act's requirements are specific and the consequences of getting the notice wrong are real. This is a solicitor's letter, not a template you improvise. What you can do without advice is put the clock on: record a drop-off date, chase at 30 and 90 days, and keep the evidence that you did.

Meanwhile, uncollected goods sit against your goods-in-trust limit and your out-of-safe limit indefinitely. A drawer of pieces from 2021 is consuming cover you are paying for.

Your service obligations

Separately from insurance, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires services supplied to consumers to be performed with reasonable care and skill. A botched resize is a breach of that, whether or not anything was lost. Professional indemnity, which appears on the TH March list, is the cover that responds - and it is a different section from goods in trust.

Five things to do this week

  1. Pull your policy schedule and find the goods in trust limit. Write it down.
  2. Count what you are actually holding, at agreed value. Compare the two numbers.
  3. Check your out-of-safe limit and whether your overnight practice complies.
  4. Check whether transit to setters, polishers and Assay Offices is covered, and to what limit.
  5. Ring your broker if any of the above surprises you. They would rather have the call than the claim.

Sources

This is general information, not legal or insurance advice. Every Jewellers Block policy is worded differently and yours is the only one that matters. Read your schedule, and speak to your broker and, for uncollected goods, a solicitor before acting.

WatchCRM holds customer property on a separate ledger from stock, because legally it is separate, and shows you the total value in trust and where each piece physically is. It puts a clock on uncollected items so the drawer stops filling up.