While rising gold prices might mean precious jewellery may not be fully covered by your home insurance, the good news is you could make money from old trinkets lying around the house
The price of gold has skyrocketed in the last year – in the last six months alone, prices increased by 19.9% – meaning an ounce of gold is now worth £400 more than it was before Christmas. And although that’s good news for many, as you could sell unwanted items to make money, you should check your home insurance.
Angela Pilley, home insurance expert at Defaqto told Sky News: “You have a limit for each valuable item you own, and that’s the single article limit. What consumers need to be aware of, she says, is whether they have bought an item and the value has increased above the single-item limit.
“When you take out your home insurance policy, you will have a figure that covers your overall contents, but you also need to check if the limit on each valuable item you own is now high enough. That doesn’t mean your home insurance won’t necessarily cover it, but it does mean you need to disclose it,” she added.
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“Before you disclose it, you will need to get the item valued, the details of which you then pass on to your insurer. They’ll then store it on file, so if something happens, you can get reimbursed the right amount.
“This is something you’ve got to be wary of and maintain, because it won’t necessarily be index-linked to increase in line with inflation. And your insurance will typically require a fairly recent valuation.”
And the good news is that if you have gold lying around your home and you don’t mind selling it, now could be the time to do it. One woman from London recently told The Mirror how she bought a ring about 20 years ago from Suttons and Robertsons in Victoria, London near to where she used to work.
After not really warming to wearing yellow gold, she decided to sell it and received £560 although it initially only cost £150. If Sarah had sold it three years ago she’d have received about £350 based on the weight, so her return has increased by over £200 (60%) in just three years.
Sarah Byfield-Riches, who runs her own creative partnerships consultancy, said: “I kept reading about the price of gold going up and it seemed like a good time to finally let the ring go.
“I already had an idea of what I thought it might be worth, and so when I was offered a little bit more, I was happy to accept. We shook hands and the money was all in my bank on the same day. The whole process could not have been simpler, and I’m thrilled to have been able to realise a generous return for something I’d not looked at in a long time.”
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