In the event that you lose your engagement ring, you don’t want to find yourself without recourse to recover the value. Whether it goes down the drain, you leave it in a public restroom while washing your hands, it is taken from your home or your person during a robbery, or it simply slips off somewhere along the way, you want to be sure that you don’t lose both the ring and the cash value in the bargain. For this reason, it is important to get insurance as soon as possible once you have the ring on your finger (or even earlier if you’re fiancé plans to hold it for a while before presenting it).
The first step is to have the ring appraised. Regardless of what your honey paid for your engagement ring, you’ll need certification papers from an appropriate source in order to relay the value of the ring to your insurance company. Plus, the ring may be worth more or less than what was paid for it. And it’s never a bad idea to get a second opinion, just in case it turns out that the rock in question is not what was agreed upon when your fiancé purchased the ring. An outside appraisal is quite simply a good idea, even if you buy from a trusted source. From there you simply turn the paperwork over to your insurance provider so that they can begin loss-coverage on an item that is near and dear to your heart.
But what if you lose the ring before your insurance coverage kicks in? This could present a real problem. With no insurance in place, you lack the ability to recover the value of your ring in the event of loss or theft. This means your only recourse is to find the ring. So your first step is to retrace your steps. Try to remember the last time you saw it or were wearing it and go from there. It’s possible that you just set it down somewhere (like on a sink) and it is still there. If you know where you lost it, you could also see if the location has a lost-and-found; maybe someone turned it in. If all else fails, you’ll have to advertise (with flyers or in local publications to see if perhaps it was found and taken home).
If your engagement ring was stolen, you can file a police report. And if it went down the drain, it may be stuck in a bend, in which case a plumber could try to find it. But the odds of recovering your ring once it is gone are pretty slim, so your best bet is to get insurance as quickly as possible.
