How Does Jewelry Store Insurance Work? 6 Industry Tips

Insurance coverage helps small businesses stay afloat when they face unforeseen challenges. Insurance policies shield a business from the effects of theft, loss, damage, accidents, and other events which could otherwise cause it to go under.

But how does jewelry insurance work?

With so many different providers and plans, choosing the right coverage for your store can seem intimidating. In this blog, we’ll outline the different types of insurance available for a small jewelry business, how to choose the right provider, the process for filing a claim, and more.

How Does Jewelry Insurance Work? 6 Tips

To attain the necessary coverage for your jewelry store, you need to understand the risks small businesses face and how insurance policies mitigate those risks. The following six tips explain how insurance policies protect your business and how you can make informed decisions when it comes to insurance.

1. Understand Jewelry Store Insurance Coverage

Insurance coverage is necessary for any small business, but because of the significant investment required to open a jewelry store, you need to protect that investment with comprehensive insurance coverage. 

There are a variety of insurance policies available for small businesses that cover various costly situations, including bundled policies that combine multiple types of coverage.

These policies are each designed for a different threatening situation, including liability, theft, property damage, automobile damage, interrupted income, and more. Being covered for these events mitigates some of the risk in running a small business, giving you greater peace of mind.

Insurance policies can be expensive, and the more coverage you enroll in, the higher the budget you need to allocate for insurance. However, when your business faces an unexpected financial challenge, a payout from an insurance claim may be the difference between your business continuing or closing your doors.

Adequate insurance coverage also helps you build credibility and trust with your customers. When your customers know you have insurance, they see your business as more prepared, reliable, and secure.

1. Choose the Right Jewelry Store Insurance Policies

There are many types of insurance policies that apply to small businesses. The following are a few of the most common examples.

• General liability: A general liability insurance policy protects you against financial liability for customer injuries or damage to a customer’s property in your store. This policy can also protect you against legal liabilities from reputational harm, advertising injury, and copyright infringement.

• Worker’s compensation: If one of your store’s employees has a work-related injury or illness, a worker’s compensation policy will cover financial liabilities for their medical care, lost wages, and/or disability benefits.

• Commercial auto: If you need to operate a vehicle as part of your business operations, commercial auto insurance protects you in the event of a collision or other damage to your vehicle.

• Business property: Business property insurance covers the physical location of your jewelry store and all of the property you have in your store. This includes inventory, equipment, furniture, decorations, and any other physical property of the business. This property will be covered in the case of theft, vandalism, or a natural disaster.

• Business income insurance: Business income insurance will replace lost income if your business needs to temporarily close due to property damage.

• Business owner’s policy (BOP): A business owner’s policy is a bundled insurance policy that combines multiple policies. These typically include general liability insurance, business property insurance, and business income insurance. Buying the bundled policy will save you money, as opposed to paying for these policies separately.

Other available policies include professional liability insurance, which covers errors and omissions, and data breach insurance, which covers a business in the case of a breach in cybersecurity that leaves them financially liable. Not all of these policies will apply to every small business — an insurance agent can help you determine how much coverage your store will need.

Related Read: How Do Jewelry Stores Get Their Inventory? 7 Insights

1. Choose the Right Insurance Provider

Before committing to an insurance policy, do research on your options for providers. You have many options, and each has strengths and weaknesses. The following are a few things to consider when choosing an insurance provider for your jewelry store.

• Reputation: Look for an insurance provider with a good reputation and years of experience. Online reviews will give you a general sense of an insurance company’s reputation.

• Coverage options: Before choosing an insurance company, make sure they offer all of the policies you need for your jewelry store. Speaking with a representative from an insurance company will help you determine what kinds of insurance you need, but doing some of your own research first will help you filter out biased or incomplete information.

• Customer service: Filing insurance claims is often a complicated and tiresome process, so choosing a company with quality customer service will greatly improve your experience. Pay attention to how you’re treated when you reach out to the company to learn about their policies, and look at reviews from customers to see how they’ve been treated by customer service representatives.

• Cost vs. coverage: Making sure your store has the coverage it needs while also staying within your budget is a delicate balance. Make sure you’re able to afford the most essential policies (general liability insurance, business property insurance, business income insurance, etc.) within an affordable range — if you have extra money to spend, you can look into other policies, too.

If you have a bad experience with an insurance provider, find a new one. Ideally, you’ll find a provider you trust and can work with over the long-term, but if you find a better deal somewhere else, do what’s best for your business and make the switch.

1. Understand the Factors Affecting Jewelry Store Insurance Costs

There are several factors that affect the cost of insurance premiums — one being location. Insurance premiums will be higher in areas with high amounts of crime, for example. The value of your building and inventory will also affect your insurance premiums — as with any insurance policy, the more money you would need paid out in the event of an incident, the higher your premiums will be. 

Some insurance providers will lower your premiums if you install a security system at your store. Your premiums will also be affected by your claims history. The more claims you’ve made in the past, the higher your premiums will be. Those who have made fewer claims will have lower premiums.

Related Read: Protect Your Business With These 8 Jewelry Store Security Tips

1. Know Common Exclusions and Limitations

It’s important to note that insurance companies don’t cover everything, and some situations will nullify coverage. Even if you do have coverage and the situation applies, you may still need to meet a deductible — an amount you pay out of pocket — before the coverage applies.

These are a few situations where coverage may not apply.

• Catastrophic: Many policies don’t cover acts of war and some have exclusions for natural disasters like floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes.

• Intentional actions: If you cause damage to your store intentionally, you won’t receive an insurance payout.

• Covered elsewhere: An insurance provider will generally exclude coverage from a policy if it’s included in another policy. For example, a general liability policy won’t cover your employees because that coverage is offered in a worker’s compensation policy.

• Illegal actions: Insurance coverage would typically not apply if you commit a crime.

• Maintenance issues: Some damage to property occurs slowly over time. Insurance policies on property typically won’t cover normal wear-and-tear and routine maintenance. 

• Easy to control: Other situations are excluded from insurance coverage because they can be easily prevented. For example, many providers won’t cover damage due to rain, snow, or hail if the car was left out in the open. For this reason, it’s important to be as careful as possible with your business’ property.

As you can see, insurance providers have delineated many situations where they won’t pay out an insurance claim. Before enrolling in an insurance policy, make sure to read your policy closely — especially the fine print. You may find more exceptions than you were expecting, and knowing what these exceptions are will help you to be more careful so you can avoid paying for damage out of pocket.

Related Read: 5 Jewelry Repair Tools Every Jeweler Needs

1. Know How To File a Jewelry Store Insurance Claim

An insurance claim is typically filed as a result of some sort of unexpected incident. It may be a store break-in, a collision in a business vehicle, or a fire at your store. If the situation is an emergency, call the police immediately. Once the situation is under control, call your insurance provider.

They may need your policy number to identify you, so have it ready when you call. They will probably ask you to take pictures of the damage caused. They may send a representative to your store to check on the damage before determining if they will pay you as a result of the claim.

Filing a claim can be a tedious process, but be patient and cooperate with the insurance agents you work with. Hopefully, you’ve chosen a trustworthy provider, and they will cover what they told you they would cover when you signed up.

How Does Jewelry Store Insurance Work? Next Steps

Proper insurance coverage can be the difference between a jewelry store’s success and its failure. As you get your store up and running, insurance coverage protects it from unexpected obstacles that could otherwise cause it to go out of business.

As you research your options, look for an insurance provider that acts with integrity and offers quality customer service. Seek out experts who can help you select the right policies to protect your jewelry business while remaining within an appropriate budget.

The work you do to understand jewelry store insurance and get your business insured will be well worth it. Being well-insured gives you peace of mind as a small business owner. Knowing that you’re covered when challenges arise allows you to focus on growing your business.

For your business to reach its ultimate potential, you need a point of sale (POS) system. Jewel360 is an all-in-one, cloud-based system that has all of the features you need to run a jewelry store.

With features like payment processing, jewelry inventory management, website services, and more, Jewel360 will help you improve your customers’ experience and increase sales. Schedule a demo today!