New Tech Solutions Can Help Prevent Jewelry Theft

Jewelry retail businesses come in many varieties. Some are small mom-and-pop shops, others are larger, independent retailers, and yet others are chain stores with multiple banners. They can carry pieces from plain gold chains to diamonds and one-of-a-kind showstoppers by artists. But there is one thing they have in common: They all need insurance that can meet their primary pain points.

Insurance companies bear the onus of making sure their clients are protected, and they take that very seriously. As the industry becomes more fraught with theft, their main concern is developing solutions that can alleviate some of the burden on jewelers’ shoulders. What solutions do they see in the future to stop some of the rampant crime, and what developments do they have in the works?

Managing risk

Raising awareness around security, educating jewelers on where risk is coming from, and trying to stabilize the high level of losses that retailers incur are all top priorities for insurance companies. After all, crime has long-term effects on a jewelry store’s success — not just due to the loss of product, but also because of the potential blowback it can mean in terms of customer satisfaction and safety.

“When you think about reputation risk, the jeweler has a lot of risk when a crime occurs at their store,” says Bryon Nelson, chief product and analytics officer at Jewelers Mutual. “The customer can feel uncomfortable going to the store, and it takes a while to get the store back up and running, so at the end of the day, avoiding loss is the best approach.”

However, preventing loss is one of most difficult issues insurance companies deal with. Jewelers Mutual has a multi-pronged plan in the works that involves education, data and analytics, and technology.
“As we get more and more shipments going through our system, we will be able to provide better analytics to see where there are problem areas, including problem zip codes, so we can educate jewelers and figure out the best and safest way for our customers to ship,” Nelson explains.

The company is also creating predictive data tools — such as maps and graphs showing areas with the highest levels of commercial robberies and burglaries — as well as comparison data for cameras, alarms and safes to determine which are best, according to Howard Stone, the company’s vice president of global risk services and analytics.

Keeping track

Crime and loss prevention are also top of the list at Berkley Asset Protection. The insurer is currently working on a project it hopes to debut in the next six to 12 months.

“We are trying to work with vendors to find technology that will stop the bad guys from being able to use the trackers they place on the cars salespeople use to show their lines when they travel with jewelry,” says Andrew Chipman, Berkley’s vice president of jewelers block. “There have been instances where they have been robbed on the road, and come to find out they had trackers on their cars. So we are trying to find a technology that is capable of identifying those.”

Berkley is also seeking technology that will ensure safer jewelry shipments.

“Shipping is so bad right now, it’s an epidemic,” Chipman explains. “And it’s not just one group of people that’s the issue. You have several different problems within the system. You have people within the distribution facility where the packages get sorted, who are part of the issue. Drivers are part of the issue, and porch pirates and opportunists are part of the issue. But the problem is when you add them all up. We are trying to figure out a way to track [a package] without the bad guys being potentially alerted that there’s a tracker within it.”

Jewelers Mutual has noticed the same problem — not only with the shipments that jewelers send to customers, but also those headed to trade shows.

“We started the conversation with new technology companies for trackers above and beyond what’s currently available,” says Nelson. “We are discussing how to get the right trackers so the jeweler has visibility and essential monitoring to track loss events in real time, so if a package goes missing or is taken, they can respond quickly. By adding targeted layers of technology [such as] new tracking devices integrated into boxes, we are able to quickly identify where it is and engage with appropriate law enforcement agencies to investigate and hopefully recover the lost package.”

Personal service

Because the jewelry industry is so nuanced, a problem may affect only a handful of businesses in an insurer’s coverage audience. This means hyper-personalization is a necessity, and it’s something both Berkley and Jewelers Mutual are working on for the future.

“We’re really listening to the individual,” says Nelson. “We recognize that when it comes to supporting, protecting and strengthening their businesses for the future, one-size-fits-all won’t cut it. Every jeweler faces unique challenges, operates in distinct markets and serves diverse customer bases.”

Solutions involve looking for ways to reduce friction, streamlining the application process, creating custom coverage plans and more tailored solutions, and enhancing the mobile app experience.
Berkley’s long-term vision also aims to make insurance more personal by making sure jewelers have the right insurance for their needs.

“We want to have an interactive submission process that prompts the insurance professional to have the right conversations with the jeweler, so that all situations that may affect them come up,” says Chipman. “There would then be a dialogue on that, so they can make an informed decision on what they need coverage for.”

The right stuff

Having the correct information at hand can mean the difference between knowing if something in your store is missing or not, or making sure you have the proper coverage for your stock. It can even help with memo.

“Data and analytics will continue to be a key component of our strategy. In the future, a memo-tracking tool could be seen as a valuable service for jewelers, as well as a loss-prevention tool for Jewelers Mutual,” says Nelson — essentially creating “a data inventory system for the memo. Sometimes [the item] sits at a store for a long period of time, and people lose track of it.”

For the retailer that wants to have its goods covered without overpaying, Berkley is “looking to partner with a software company that will allow the jeweler and insurance company to share information,” reports Chipman. “It will be able to track jewelry purchases and sales, and advise when higher or lower amounts of insurance may be needed for a particular jeweler.”

Essentially, he says, “it all lies in technology. Moving into the future, technology is only going to be more important, so we will be aggressively looking at it over the next couple of years to figure out how we can best incorporate it to better service the jewelry industry.”

Image: David Polak/Midjourney

This article is from RDI Diamond’s Welcome to the Future special report. View other articles from the supplement here.