Hi, welcome to today's webinar, Jewelry and Watches Underwriting, Theft, Loss, and Recovery, hosted by Inland Marine Underwriters Association. I'm Lillian Coulson, and I thank you for joining us today. Registration was strong, with over 105 attendees registered, and we look forward to your participation today. I'd like to recognize IMUA's Arts and Records Committee for developing the content and the topic for today's program. Thank you also to our presenters, whom Andrew Gristina, our moderator, will introduce shortly, as well as to Eileen and Ali Monreale for working with our presenters to coordinate the planning of this webinar and develop the content. Just a few technical tips before we begin the webinar. You'll find your control panel on your screen, and it may minimize by default. At any point, you can click the orange arrow icon to bring it back. You can select view on your control panel and uncheck auto-hide option. Then you'll see there the very important question box. You'll also see the tab for handouts, which has a PDF of today's presentation that you can download and save to your files. To encourage your questions today and to add some friendly competition, IMUA will email a $25 Amazon gift card to one attendee for the most engaged and or best question. So, let's get started. Please be aware of the IMUA statement. And it's my pleasure to introduce today's moderator, Andrew Gristina. Andrew is director of Great American Insurance Group Fidelity Crime Division. A graduate of George Mason University, Andrew began his career at Huntington T-Block. He went on to work at AXA Art and spent several years as segment leader at Travelers. Andrew is an incredible asset to IMUA. He is the chair of IMUA's Arts and Records Committee, and he instructs IMUA's Introduction to Fine Arts class, as well as various webinars and seminars, with a goal to pass on his knowledge to assist professional development and strengthen the inland marine insurance industry. Welcome, Andrew. Thank you, Lily. That was a very nice introduction. So, it's my pleasure to moderate today's webinar on this important and timely topic, Jewelry and Watches, Underwriting, Theft, Loss, and Recovery. We have two excellent subject matter experts with us today. Let me make sure my slide is set. Let's see if I can switch. Sorry, I'm delayed. Okay. I'm getting the slide up. One sec. No problem. There we go. We have two excellent subject matter experts with us today. Tani Neng is an Art and Valuable Records Collections Manager at Chubb North America. She has about 20 years of underwriting experience in valuable collections. Tani consults with agents, brokers, and clients on insurance solutions and risk management advice for their unique collections of fine art jewelry, watches, and other collectibles. She holds an MBA in Arts and Media from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Canada, and Applied Jewelry Professional Accreditation from the Gemological Institute of America. Tani has completed workshops with the Oralogical Society of New York and courses with the International Society of Appraisers. I'm also honored to introduce Chris Marinello. Give me just a second. There's a delay on the slide, I think, when I press the button. There we go. Chris Marinello Esquire. Chris is the founder and CEO of Art Recovery International. He is one of the world's foremost experts in recovering stolen, looting, and missing works of art. A lawyer for over 37 years, Chris began his legal career as a litigator and became uniquely proficient in negotiating the complex title disputes between collectors, dealers, museums, and insurance companies. Just an interjection here. I think that complex is an understatement sometimes in those negotiations. Chris has served as a member of the Art Law Committee of the New York City Bar and is also a member of the Advisory Council of the American Appraisers Association and a member of the City of London Worshipful Company of Art Scholars. That's quite something. Both Tani and Chris are members of the IMUA Arts and Records Committee. We love having them on there. You can find the full bios on the slide, so when you download the presentation, you'll be able to review them again, and we have contact information for them. So feel free to reach out to them afterwards. Today we're going to be touching on a number of topics. We're going to talk about market loss trends, how to protect jewelry and watches, theft and loss prevention, worldwide problem of jewelry and watch theft, what steps can be taken following loss, and the recovery process, and then some solutions, best practices, and loss prevention techniques. We also have case studies, and then we have the Q&A session. I'm going to be monitoring the Q&A. I welcome your questions at any time. Please type them in, and I'll be reading them out at the end. As Lillian mentioned, the IMUA is offering a fabulous prize of an Amazon gift card to the best question, and it's my distinct honor to pick the best question today. So please do ask your questions. It makes it more interesting for us, and hopefully we learn a little bit from your questions. So with that, I will pass it on, and I think we go to the next slide, and take it away, Pam. Perfect. Thank you, Andrew. Sure. I will move us to the next slide. Great. So before we get into the loss prevention and ways, you know, to protect jewelry and watches, I wanted to start with a state of play in terms of market trends. Where are we at with jewelry and watches? What does the growth opportunity look like? So not surprisingly, you know, online sales have really helped to fuel this growing passion and investment spending on luxury jewelry and watches. And the estimated size of the global luxury fine jewelry market by the end of 2032, so less than 10 years, is estimated to be just shy of 86 billion. Now, online sales of diamond jewelry represented 25% of U.S. sales by value in 2021, and this compares to 14% in 2015. So certainly an important increase in that short timeframe. Now, watches and jewelry make up 80% of the global pre-owned luxury goods market. That's estimated at 45 billion. And this segment, the pre-owned luxury segment, is actually the one that's expected to increase the most compared to retail. The 45 billion is actually two times the size it was in 2017. So you can see the opportunities here for growth in future. And of course, on the jewelry and the watch side, we are also looking at watches and the total estimated watch sales for the top five auction houses, Philips, Christie's, Sotheby's, Antiquorum, and Bonhams for the 2022 year was 900 million. So significant number of sales. Now, more specifically, I thought I would take a moment to highlight the market trends that we've been seeing in watches, because this is an area that has seen exponential growth. There's a lot of interest, a lot of passion, and new collectors that have actually come into the market over the last few years. So sought after luxury watches by brands like Audemars Piguet, AP for short, Patek Philippe, and Rolex, they're trading at many multiples their retail price. And you're probably wondering, you know, what are the reasons for that? And there are a few key factors. First, there's a limited supply in terms of the availability of these watches. Manufacturers are only making a certain amount, certain number. These are also, for the most part, hand assembled. So it takes a lot of time. There are specific labor expertise that's required. And then what you also have, though, in addition to this limited supply, is restricted access at retail. So even if tomorrow I want to buy, you know, a very desirable Rolex piece and I have the budget, I can't simply walk into an authorized dealer and buy the watch. I have to be a valued customer of theirs, which means, you know, having a year-long relationship, probably having purchased other jewelry pieces or other watches over time. And then maybe I'll get on the wait list for that very desirable watch model that I'm looking for. So this is what we mean by restricted access at retail. Those two things combined with the high demand in the marketplace for these watches is actually what's contributing to the pre-owned watch market that's just boomed and exploded. So you have all these online sellers like Watchbox, like Chrono24, Chrono24 being sort of a marketplace for pre-owned watches. It's like the eBay for watches. And so this is an area of the market that has just exploded. So within, I would say, the watch market, a couple of other areas I think that's worth highlighting is the rise of independent watchmakers. You have some of the very well-known names here listed. Everything from Micribia, Richard Pachepe, George Daniels, Phidib Zuful, to Roger Smith and Urwerk. And actually, some of the sales within this place have been pretty, within the space, have been pretty impressive. Just a couple of years ago, there was a very rare Phidib Zuful that sold for a record-breaking of $7.6 million. So significant numbers also being achieved in this space. And then, of course, want to make a mention of vintage watches. And there's an area of the market that's getting a little bit more of attention now. I think collectors are looking for areas that maybe previously have not been as noticed. And this is what we call the neo-vintage, and those are watches from the 1980s to 90s. So combining kind of the best of the vintage world with sort of more modern characteristics in these watches. So the neo-vintage is kind of one area. And then, of course, I think it's worth mentioning Vintage Cartier because they've certainly, I think, they're definitely having a moment right now. At least for the last few years, we've seen prices increase pretty significantly. I think most of you will even be familiar with the famous Cartier Crash watch. This has that beautiful sort of dial that looks like it's been involved in a crash, literally. And the record-breaking Cartier Crash that sold actually last year at auction went for $1.65 million. So, again, significant numbers being achieved. Something just, I think, fun to know about watches is it's always in the detail. That Cartier Crash that sold for that record price was actually a London model. And in general, London models are a lot more rare than the Paris models. So, again, rarity, details, all of that comes into play when we're looking at values and growth in the watch market. So, to move us to our next slide, I wanted to segue with a quick poll. And hopefully everyone can see the question up. So, according to the Jewelry Security Alliance, the JSA, by what percentage did jewelry crime in the U.S. increase by from 21 to 22? So, if you can select option 1, 5%, option B, approximately 15%, or option C, over 30%. So, what percentage did jewelry crime increase by in the U.S. from 21 to 22? I'm just going to give maybe a couple of more seconds for everyone to enter their answer. And it looks like, so we've got 6% who answered A, 36% approximately 15% increase, and the majority of you answered over 30%. So, that's great. The majority of you got the right answer. And if I move us to the next slide. Perfect. So, this segues us in nicely to the lost trends and what we're seeing in terms of jewelry crime. Now, the JSA did note, according to their data, that 2022 was a record year for them when it comes to jewelry crime in the U.S. And they, again, noted the increase was 31% compared to the prior year. So, total losses estimated over $110 million, which is pretty significant. Now, amongst the jewelry crime, of course, luxury watches are being targeted. And a couple of more, I think, interesting data points I thought I would share with you. According to the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, they saw a 30% increase in thefts involving at least one watch worth $5,000 or more. So, again, coming back to this growth in the luxury watch market. And then the Watch Register, which tracks lost and stolen watches, they reported a 60% increase in watch theft in 22 over the previous year. So, pretty significant jump. Also on this slide, I thought I would highlight, just to give a little bit more color to the 2022 year and the rise in jewelry crime that was seen, some of the headlines that were reported in the media. So, the first one, a Brinks truck was robbed in California. It had over $100 million in jewelry from jewelry's inventory, a pretty significant amount. Some of the recent developments indicate that inside knowledge was at play. And then we have, of course, private individuals who are not immune to jewelry crime. You probably saw not too long ago the headline where Beyonce's mother had a home burglary loss at her L.A. home and her safe was stolen outright. And then, of course, there was that major robbery at TFAF in Maastricht, where there's actually videos online where you can see what happened. They broke into jewelry cases and they stole the jewelry. The fare was evacuated as a result because it was during open hours. So, again, I think it's worth recognizing the lost trend that's being seen in the industry. So, what can contractors do to protect their jewelry and their watches? And, of course, I think the first thing is to recommend insurance. Now, I think it's worth highlighting that you don't want to rely on homeowners' contents insurance when it comes to valuables like jewelry and watches. You really want to look for a separate coverage, specific coverage, what we call in the industry a floater, a rider, a valuables policy. And the reason for that is homeowners' contents coverage has very limited coverage. It typically has very low special limits, can range from $1,000 to $5,000, and then you have a deductible. So, homeowners' contents coverage is really not going to be the right place to cover these very valuable pieces. So, again, you want to look to a separate valuables policy that's added to your homeowners. And the valuables policy is really going to provide separate coverage for your jewelry and your watches. You want to look for coverage that's all risk, worldwide, no deductible. Also, under this type of policy, you can look to a blanket limit, which is basically buying an overall limit with a subject per item limit that's attached. Or you have itemized coverage where you list out all the items, you have respective values. And having itemized coverage, I would say, is a great option because it essentially settles loss before it happens. You have everything listed out, and in the event of loss, you just have to point to the items that were impacted. By listing the value for each of the items, you can also look to an agreed value coverage, which is very valuable. So, again, in the event of a loss, you know that you're going to get that amount. And then I think another item worth noting under a separate floater, rider, valuables policy, inflation protection. Over the years, prices go up, material costs, labor, retail prices, those all increase. So, inflation will add a certain percentage to your coverage amount every year. And that provides a certain level of cushion also for collectors. So, again, really important to ensure your jewelry and watches and to make sure that you're working with your agent and broker on getting the right type of broad coverage for these very valuable pieces, especially in light of the loss trends that are being seen in the market and, of course, the growing values. So, another way that collectors can really help protect the value and their collections, you know, jewelry and watches, is really through appraisals. And on the slide here, we have outlined really the key elements that you should look for in a professional jewelry and watch appraisal. And I think some of them are very straightforward. But I did want to spend a little bit of time on some of the key items that I'd like to highlight here. And I think the first one worth noting is the in-person or virtual desktop appraisal. Certainly, since the pandemic, you know, virtual desktop appraisals have become a lot more common. At the same time, I do see a lot of jewelry appraisers really looking to appraise the items in-person based on an examination of the jewelry. Of course, if there is sufficient documentation, such as invoices, lab reports, you know, provenance documentation and photos, a virtual desktop appraisal can be feasible. So, it's just worth noting when reviewing appraisal, is it one that's based on a desktop review or is it one that was based on an in-person examination? And then the item right under that, retail replacement or fair market value, another important element of an appraisal to note. When it comes to insurance, we do look for retail replacement because at the time of loss, we're looking to make the client whole again. It's about looking at a comparable item in the marketplace that could replace the one that was lost. And typically, it means looking to the higher market. It means within a restricted timeframe. And these values are going to be higher than a fair market value, which are more conservative. So, fair market, you're probably familiar with the definition. It's the value at which an item is going to trade, you know, between a willing buyer, willing seller within a set amount of time given relevant, you know, facts and the relevant market. So, the one exception I do want to highlight here because I just talked about watches and I just talked about how the secondary market prices for very sought-after pieces is significantly higher than retail price. And so, when it comes to watches, you really want to look for a current market value when it comes to appraisals. But in general, for jewelry pieces, you're really looking at the retail replacement costs. And then, of course, we have provenance and documentation, always really important to keep with your items. Now, the next one, how is the stone graded? I will touch on this on the next slide. But I do want to mention it is important to look at pieces, you know, that have very valuable gems, diamonds, colored gemstones. Were those stones graded? How were they graded? And what do they tell us? This is important information that the appraiser is going to rely on, and they would include that in their evaluation report. And then, of course, there's the manufacturer, the origin, designer, the signature. So, again, those types of elements and value factors will really add an important multiple, in some cases, to the value. If something is signed by Cartier, or if it's a Richard Mille watch versus, you know, another manufacturer or another brand, it's going to have a significant impact on the value. And you're going to look for that signature. You're going to want to look for those specific details. And then the last one I'll just highlight on this slide is the credential of the appraiser. So, within jewelry, within watches, of course, you want to work with an appraiser that has relevant expertise in those areas. And in each of those, you have vintage pieces, which are going to be very different from modern pieces. So, again, really important, work with an appraiser that has expertise within the relevant market, and that also comes recommended to you. So, I mentioned GEMLAB reports, and I was going to spend just a little bit of time to touch on this, because I think it's worth noting. GEMLAB reports, these are not valuations again, these are analysis of a gem's characteristics and it's done by a lab using professional lab tools. For a diamond, for example, they're going to be looking at the four C's and they're going to be analyzing the carat weight, color, clarity, and cut. Typically there's going to be a plot diagram included. It's also going to confirm whether there's been any enhancements to the stone potentially, and if it's a color gem, you know, what the origin is. So a GemLab report is really important documentation for an appraiser that they rely on as a value factor confirming all of these characteristics of the gem when they're arriving at a value for the jewelry piece. And on the slide here I did want to share some of the really well-known and go-to labs for diamonds and color gems. When it comes to the diamond, really the go-to lab is the GIA. They provide the most consistent grading results just across the industry. When it comes to color gems, the go-to labs are really AGL, Gubelin GemLab, GRS, and SSES. And actually what's interesting is, you know, when it comes to consigning a jewelry piece with an important color gemstone to an auction house, auction houses will require an updated lab report. And for very valuable pieces with, you know, unique and rare color gems, they're actually going to ask not for just one lab report, but two. So you'll typically see, you know, cashmere, sapphire, jewelry piece, for example, that will have two of these colored gemstone grading reports included in the description. So with the auction houses, you know, with sellers asking for these updated reports, it's also best practice if a buyer is going to be looking at making an important purchase of a jewelry piece, that they also look to these lab reports and that they keep them in their file as part of the documentation of the piece. And then when they have the item, you know, appraised, they can also provide the documentation to the appraiser. So now that we have a sense of the importance of insurance, we also have a sense of the importance of appraisals as ways to help protect valuable jewelry and watches, I did want to touch on some of the lost trends and what collectors can do to protect jewelry in their home, to protect jewelry when they're traveling. So in terms of protecting jewelry in the home, really a great approach is to look at these multiple layers of protection. So making it difficult to access the collection. And the best place to start is really to install a high security fireproof safe. This essentially means a professionally bolted safe, or it's going to be over 750 pounds. And the reason for the 750 pounds is, it's going to be difficult for one person to easily move that level of weight. The other part of a high security safe is a security rating, and a TRTL or TL30X6 rating. Essentially what that means is, it's going to take at least 30 minutes to break open this safe with a professional torch and tool on all six sides. So again, making it difficult to access the jewelry, the valuables that are stored inside the safe. Of course, you want to ask, is the safe hidden? Does it have restricted access? You don't want to have a safe installed out in the open where people can easily see and access it. Now of course, the safe is important, but so is the alarm system that the home has. And you really want to look for a comprehensive home alarm system, which means also having contacts and glass break sensors on the openings of the second floor level of the home on the upper floors. You wouldn't think that it's so easy to scale the second floor, but I've certainly seen my share of examples where third parties have accessed homes from a second-story window, second-story glass door. The alarm did not trigger because there wasn't glass break sensors, there were no motion sensors, there were no contacts, and as a result they were able to more easily access the valuables within the home. Now another layer of protection that's actually really effective is alarming the safe on a separate zone. So even if your home alarm system is not activated, if it's, you know, somehow been disabled, and if you have the safe separately alarmed on its own zone, it will have 24-7 surveillance so that it will be much better protected. So again, another layer of protection. Installing more than one safe is great. It's going to provide, you know, spread of risk. I often see collectors actually having two safes for more practical reasons. They'll have one safe for storing, you know, jewelry pieces or valuables that they don't often need to access, and then they'll actually have a second safe for more everyday items. So again, practical but also a great way to spread the risk. And then the last item, just to highlight, monitoring third-party access to premises. Again, really important. You know, if a home needs repairs, if there's contractors that have to come through, making sure that the jewelry and valuables are well protected during that time is important. I've seen examples, again, of work being done in a home, homeowners coming back at the end of the day, and knowing that valuables have gone missing. The same with, you know, if a home is going to be put up for sale, there's going to be public viewings. You really want to make sure those valuables are secured, because again, situations of lost and mysterious disappearance has happened. So those are some recommendations for protecting jewelry, you know, within a home. Again, creating those layers of protection. And then I also wanted to share some tips around protecting jewelry and watches when traveling. You know, jewelry and watches, they're made to be worn, they're made to be enjoyed, but it's also a good idea to take some measures of protection, because again, we are seeing an uptick with theft of valuables. Chris is actually going to share some great stories with us, but you just have to go online. You can see countless examples of watches, you know, being taken right off the wrist of wearers. You know, people are targeting luxury watches because they know they're valuable, and they're also easy to access. So again, when traveling, I think it's worth considering some of these important tips. And the first one, curating the items, you know, that you travel with. So again, maybe not taking your entire collection with you, maybe looking through and specifically choosing the items that you're going to want to wear when you're traveling. This way it limits how much you have with you. So I think curating the items is a good place to start. And then you want to pack the items that you're bringing with you in nondescript cases. You want to keep them on your person and within sight at all times. Never leave jewelry and valuables unattended, whether that's in an unattended hotel room, whether that's in a parked vehicle that's unattended. You really, again, want to keep the valuables, the bag that the valuables are in, close to you at all times when traveling. If you are staying at a hotel, one recommendation I would share is to store your valuables with the jewelry's main vaults. Don't store high-value items in the in-room hotel safe because that offers really minimal level of protection. Anyone can make arrangements with the hotel ahead of time. If you're bringing valuables, again, what storage options can they offer? So recommending, again, storing with the hotel's main vault. And then I think the next item, you know, thinking twice about posting on social media, I mentioned how, you know, the online sales and really social media has helped in a lot of ways the collecting community grow. A lot more people are educated about, you know, the items like jewelry and watches. They're more aware of values. But at the same time, you really want to be careful on how you utilize social media. You know, posting about your collection or posting about your location, that can make you vulnerable. I think the best example that we all know is Kim Kardashian in Paris. You know, she was targeted and her valuables were stolen. She had shared on social media, you know, her location. People knew she had valuable jewelry. People also knew who was with her, who wasn't with her. So again, social media is something that's really important to be aware of and it can make someone very vulnerable. And then, again, I'll just touch on the appraisals because another great way to protect jewelry and watches, you really want to reappraise every three to five years. That's sort of a good industry standard average. At the same time, with some very rare collectible or sought-after pieces, with the volatility that we're seeing in the marketplace, you really want to revisit these items and the values annually. In some cases, you can see a significant shift. As, you know, just one example, the watch market has seen some softening in prices compared to the height of prices in the market last year, in March and April. For some of these very sought-after pieces, prices have come down since then. So again, depends on the watch, depends on, you know, the details and the marketing conditions, the values can change pretty significantly. So I think reappraising is another good reminder for collectors. And now I'm going to pass the presentation over to my colleague, Chris. Thank you, Tani. Wonderful to see what you had to say. And I would just like to begin my portion of this presentation by telling you what I plan on discussing. The agenda for my portion will be explaining the worldwide problem of jewelry and watch theft. I will briefly discuss some of the steps that a victim or insurance company needs to take after a theft. I will discuss some of the recovery process, the solutions, best practices, and loss prevention suggestions. And finally, we'll go into a number of case studies. Now, many of you know me as the founder of Art Recovery International, and that's what we have done for many, many years, is recovering stolen art for victims and insurance companies. About five years ago, we started to get an influx of jewelry and especially watch theft. And this I would attribute to the rise of the values of watches, which I'll discuss a little bit later. This slide here is not me dancing with a journalist. It's a frame of a documentary that I did in Switzerland to show the journalist how easy it is to remove a watch. If you see, I'm distracting him with my left hand. With my right hand, I'm removing his watch. Now, we did this in one take, and the watch fell right off. Now, if a lawyer can do this, imagine how easy it is for a hardened watch criminal to approach you, distract you, and remove your watch. So we're going to discuss some of the elements of that today. The next slide, which I hope to move to. There we go. So, watches as art. Penny was talking about this in her presentation, and I'm going to reiterate why we're here talking about watches. In 2007, when the iPhone came out, everyone said that the watch industry was going to die, that people were going to use their mobile phones as timepieces, and we were no longer going to wear wrist-bound watches. Well, the watch industry responded in a brilliant fashion and came out with more complicated watches, more desirable watches, that became a fashion accessory. They made them exclusive. Tani was explaining how today you can't just walk into a Rolex boutique and walk out with one of the finest timepieces. You need to get on a list, and to get on that list, you need to buy. The more you buy, the more you're offered. This is exactly how Ferrari works. You can't just buy a Ferrari at a local showroom, in most cases. They need to know that you're a good customer, and that you're going to come back and buy the next one that they offer. So in this way, the watch industry created an incredible demand, and now we have sports stars, we have Hollywood stars, we have Instagram influencers. Anybody in the high net worth world is exhibiting and showing off high-value watches. Fifty-five million dollars for a graph diamond watch. Eighteen million for Jacob and Company. Patek came out with a extremely complicated watch that does everything other than the dishes. Paul Newman's vintage Rolex, because of his association with the actor, sold for 17 million, and Breguet came out with a 30 million dollar Marie Antoinette model. So as you can see, we are no longer just talking about a timepiece to tell you the time of day. We are talking about fine art. Now, if this was television, I would say tell your children to go into the other room. This is an actual video from a home camera. One of my clients, who lives in Miami, sent these to me and asked me to help him find his Audemars Piguet watch. He had, this was a very important AP watch, one of five created. It's worth half a million dollars, and he was at a local bar having a couple of drinks wearing this watch, and this is what happened when he came home. He is there in the middle of your picture over to your right. He just got out of his Ferrari, and he's going to his front door wearing the watch. In the background, at the street, you can see a car where there are three people, two of whom are about to approach the victim, and one is driving the car. So let's run the video. Here we go. Now, what you don't see there is they are pistol-whipping my client. They have, each one of them has a gun. They're beating my client in his, in the doorway of his car, of his home. They've taken his half a million dollar watch, and they went back to the truck that's waiting at the street. What happens next is they recognize that my client has been incapacitated, and they come back to the Ferrari where they steal his laptop with all his personal passwords and everything, his iPhone, everything about his entire life is now being removed from the Ferrari, and they drive away. Now, this is happening every week in every major city in the world, and I am showing you these graphic images, not to scare anybody, but because we kind of get desensitized when we hear about watch theft and watch crime. We don't realize what's really going on out there. Now, an interesting aside to that particular incident in Miami, yesterday I got a call. The FBI managed to track down the three criminals and arrest them. They are now in prison in Miami. The watch is long gone. They may question these individuals. They may try to find out where the watch was sold. We're hopeful that that will provide some leads, but in reality, the only way that watch is going to appear is when it shows up for sale somewhere in the world or is submitted to AP for service, and I'll discuss a little bit more about that later. But there are different types of watch theft that we're seeing right now. There's the traditional home invasion, which I just showed you, where we are now seeing gangs of South American criminals going to the United States and hitting homes from Maine to Florida, breaking into the homes, breaking into the bedrooms, getting to the safe, throwing the safes out the window, breaking them open, stealing jewelry, and stealing fine watches. They know the watches are there, and that's what they're going after. We're seeing jewelers and dealers throughout the world becoming victims in such a violent manner, where sledgehammers are used to break store windows. They're using cars to smash into the jewelry shop windows and grabbing whatever they can. We're seeing street theft, like this gentleman here in his car, where they approach somebody violently ripping or cutting the watch off a young person or an elderly person's wrist. At Harrods in London, the thieves are watching people go into the shop and watching people come out, and they are following them, and then they are stealing their high-value watches. It's gotten so bad in London that the Metropolitan Police have created a flying squad, they call it, that operates around Harrods to protect shoppers from this type of theft. I have a client who had his arm hanging out of the window of his Ferrari, stopped at a stoplight. Two criminals came on a moped, cut the watch off his wrist, and off they went. We're also seeing watches being used in financial crimes, money laundering. These are small objects that are worth hundreds of thousands. You could get three watches and have a million dollars in your hand. They're being used for financial crimes. We're seeing victims buying watches and having their money taken from them. Clients who are, I would say, nothing short of knuckleheads, who are going to gas stations to buy and sell watches and meeting people at unsafe locations and having their money taken from them, and the watches. We're seeing fraud where fake watches are created in China and being submitted as original watches. These are all different versions of watch and jewelry crime that we're seeing today. So when someone approaches me and says, my watch was stolen, what do we do? Well, the first thing I tell them is to file a police report. Now, often they say, well, the police aren't going to do anything, and they're most likely right. But from a recovery standpoint, I need that crime reference number. I need that police report number. I need to know that the watch was reported to the authorities so that when we find it two years, five years, whatever it might be from now, I can tell the possessor, because they're always going to ask, how do we know this watch was actually stolen and they didn't sell it on? Well, here's the police report. So this is the purpose of going to law enforcement, even if we think they're not going to investigate. The next thing I advise victims to do is to notify their insurance company. Some people are on vacation when this happens. Some people forget. Some people decide that, you know, they don't want to have their policies increase. Some people say, well, you know, I'll get around to it. But it's critical to notify the insurer, as you know from the language in the policies, as quickly as possible. Then a very critical thing is to notify the manufacturer of the watch. Rolex, Patek, AP, they all maintain databases of stolen watches. Now, they don't publicize this because they don't want people who bring watches in for service to know that these watches that are coming in for service are being checked against their internal databases. Then they would lose business of servicing these watches. But they do maintain the watches and these databases. And here is a form from Richard Mille. When you have your Richard Mille stolen, these are the types of things you need to fill out, police report, name and address. Usually, I'm put in there as the representative, and if the watch ever appears for sale or for service, Richard Mille or the manufacturer will notify me, and then we can work towards the recovery. You might say, well, why would Richard Mille or any other watch manufacturer be interested in sales? They are looking at sales. They have teams in-house who are looking at the aftermarket of their watches to see how they're performing, so they are very much in tune with the sales that are taking place of their watches at Sotheby's, Bonhams, Christie's, wherever it might be. Another thing we tell victims to do is to register the watches on various private and public databases. We have maintained a database of stolen watches. There is the FBI national stolen art file. There's the Interpol database, and of course, we mentioned the watch databases. Another thing we offer both our insurance company clients and our victims is to send out theft alerts. These are posted to about 10,000 different jewelry shops, auction houses, posted online, social media, LinkedIn, and they are designed to showcase the watch that was stolen, offer a reward if that is the case, and we have been very successful in getting people, tipsters from around the world, contacting us who have had no connection to the theft, notifying us of stolen watches that are appearing either online or in various dealers or auction houses. The next thing I tell clients is to be patient. I have one client that calls me every week to find out where his Patek Philippe is and whether there's been any progress. It's not happening that fast. Generally, these watches will appear in the marketplace or for service every two to five years. Now, I say that because, for example, Patek Philippe recommends that their watches be serviced every three to five years, so if you have one of these watches, that's how it's going to show up. It's going to be brought to a Patek Philippe service center somewhere in the world, and that will give us an excellent opportunity to notify the victim that we have found their watch and work towards recovery. So, let's talk briefly about the recovery process. You would like to think that when I present somebody that they possessed a stolen watch that they just give up and say, oh, we don't want anything that's stolen. Here, take it back. Never happens. The first thing they want to know is, is the watch really stolen? How do we know that the watch is the same? Well, that's what's the great thing about these watches. They all have a unique serial number. They have a unique model number, and we're able to positively identify that the watch in their possession is stolen property, and then we hear things, well, what are you going to pay me? Is there a reward? What kind of a compensation am I going to get? I mean, like I said, it's a very difficult process, and one needs to develop a very well-planned, well-thought-out strategy. A lot of my clients, their first inclination when they see their watch being sold on eBay is to contact eBay, and the only thing eBay is going to do is contact their seller, who's then going to remove the watch from the listing and disappear with it, and eBay is happy because they're no longer offering a stolen watch. The victim doesn't have any hope of getting their watch back, and the police have no information, so before when a victim sees their watch, we tell them to contact us so we can develop a plan. One also has to be wary of these watch databases. There's many of them out there. Some of them, some of these watch registers actually work for the auction houses, checking the objects that they are selling for sale, so when a victim is approached by one of these databases, they say, oh, we can help you get your watch back, but they're also representing the seller of these watches. That's a conflict of interest, so we encourage people to not go to these watch registers when it comes time to develop a strategy to recover their watches. Now, notifying law enforcement. It's absolutely critical. We have to give the police an opportunity to investigate the crime. We know, unfortunately, in most cases that they're going to do very little, and this has been something I've been talking about in the press recently, been very critical of police forces worldwide. They're very quick to hand out a crime reference number and say, I hope you're insured, and that's about the end of it. Fingerprints are not being taken. Investigations are not being done. Law enforcement is saying that they are understaffed and underpaid, and they just don't have the resources to investigate watch thefts or jewelry thefts, and it's quite sad because I've got a lot of people contacting me about wedding rings that were stolen from safes. These are not just financial losses, but very sentimental losses, and they don't understand why the police are not taking fingerprints like they see on TV. It's just not going to happen, so we notify law enforcement at the right time. We want to present law enforcement with a full case. We tell them where the piece is, who's offering it for sale. We want to know who the seller is. We want to have their address, their email address, their phone number, what their demands are, and then we give this to law enforcement because if we just tell law enforcement this watch is stolen and this is where it's being offered for sale without any more information, there's a very little likelihood that they're going to do anything with it. We also want to notify the seller or the seller's agent at the right time. As I mentioned before, if you contact eBay or Cronall 24 and you tell them, oh, I found a couple of stolen watches on your website, they're just looking for out for themselves. They're going to remove the listing and that's the last you're going to hear about that seller from Romania that has your half a million dollar watch. So we like to first, sometimes we'll pretend to be a buyer, sometimes we will contact the seller, find out the address, find out where to send the money, what bank accounts we're supposed to use. Once we have this information, then we can do something a little more intelligent rather than just calling out and seeing them disappear. One has to notify the insurance company, of course, because when these watches are recovered and they were insured, they are the property of the insurer and a lot of people don't realize that, but they have to read their policy and see if they have a right to buy back the watch and return the payout amount and we take care of that for the insured and most of the fine art insurance companies have these buyback clauses in the policies, but they're important to identify and to discover what those terms are. When we approach a seller of a stolen watch, whether it's an auction house or someone online or a dealer or the manufacturer, we demand that they hold the watch securely. It is absolutely critical that they serve as an independent stakeholder by holding the watch because by giving it to their consigner who runs off with it isn't going to help the victim or the insurance company get their asset back. So we send a demand letter requesting that they hold the watch until either we can reach a settlement with the possessor or get law enforcement to seize the watch as part of a criminal case. We then sometimes commence the negotiation process with the actual seller or possessor of the stolen watch. Now that really depends what it's hard to say what negotiations look like. If the case is in the US or the UK, we have a very strong case and we don't really have to negotiate much with the possessor of a stolen watch. If the watch is in France or a civil law country where they could get good title to stolen property under the laws of their countries, then we have to make a deal. We still have weapons at our disposal, the watches may be registered on various databases, the watches might be registered as stolen with the manufacturers, which will make it difficult for the possessor to sell that watch. So with those registrations, they are forced to deal with us on some level. And like I said, we don't always 50-50 these cases. If it's a US-UK based theft, we have a very strong case, we're very disinclined to have a financial settlement with the possessor. But if the case is legally not sound, we will try to negotiate with them based on the strength of the claim. The interesting thing about watches is that they increase in value many times. So while the victim might have $200,000 into a watch, it may now be worth $300,000, which gives him some financial leeway to settle up with a possessor, a good faith possessor under certain laws. If we don't get any cooperation from the possessor or their representative, we are not opposed to filing a criminal complaint. And we've been doing that recently. When I first started working in recovering stolen art, I was very careful not to step on the toes of the auction houses, because I thought that treating them well, they would respond in kind and be more cooperative with me. And little did I know that working with auction houses is often like a one-way street. They only care about themselves. So I have no qualms anymore about filing a criminal complaint against an auction house and their directors if they are moving stolen property in violation of the law. And that's what we will do. And what we have done, and I'll explain a little bit later in one of the case studies. And last resort to filing a criminal complaint against a seller of stolen watches is litigation, civil litigation. Now, in most cases, we try to avoid litigation. We try to recover these watches without resorting to the legal process. But what's interesting about these watches is my clients are some very high net worth individuals who, if you have half a million dollars to put into a watch and wear on your wrist, you tend to be more of an A-type personnel and you want to go after the possessor of your watches. And a lot of these, my clients are willing to take these chances and litigate these cases. But again, we're trying to avoid that. The insurers don't want the litigation, the victims don't want the press, and neither do the auction houses. So, so far, we've been able to avoid heavy litigation on stolen watches. But this is part of our recovery processes. Okay. Now, a lot of people say to me, well, what can I do to keep this from happening? How do I advise my insureds to stop watch theft? Well, number one, documentation. We ask people all the time, and I lecture on this quite often, about documentation. When you buy a watch, you save everything. The box, the certificate that came with the watch, the receipt, even if the watch gets stolen from you, never throw out the box and the certificate. These are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Patek Philippe watch if you have that original box and certificate. It will increase the value of the watch. So, throw nothing away. Take photos of the watch. Write down the serial numbers and the model numbers so that if they do get stolen, you're able to quickly identify the watch with proper documentation. The next one is we tell our clients, don't be stupid. Now, down in the lower right-hand side, you could see a husband and wife, newly married couple said, oh, we bought ourselves matching Rolexes. We're going to Amsterdam. Well, the next slide after this that I didn't show you was, we were robbed in Amsterdam during our honeymoon of our Rolex watches, okay? So, the thieves are also watching social media. So, if you're stupid enough to tell people where you are, where you're going, what watches you're bringing to your hotel, you're going to get robbed. Don't rely on the police to save the day. They are, as I said previously, they are no longer taking fingerprints. I have presented the police in various jurisdictions with two suspects. It's either the cleaner or it's the landlord's contractor. One of these people stole your watch. The police won't lift a finger and interview either one of them. That's a real case. So, you cannot rely on the police to save the day. So, you need to secure your valuables in advance. Be smart. Don't travel with expensive jewelry. When people asked me recently, an insurer asked me to do a presentation this summer and said, could you give us some advice to our collectors about traveling with rare watches? Yeah, I said don't. Just don't do it. But if you must, make sure you notify your insurance company that the watches are going to be traveling, that you're going to the south of France. They may want to know that you may need to look at your policy and see whether they're covered for this journey. That might help you decide whether or not to take them with you. Use an escrow service. When a lot of these clients called me and said they're victims of financial fraud, that they turned over their watch collection in exchange for bags of cash and turned out they were counterfeit funds. I said, why don't you use an escrow account or an escrow service? Well, I didn't know. Well, they do that for their houses. Why can't they do it for the sale of their watches? I mean, you know, we understand some of these people, some of these collectors are used to dealing in cash. Maybe they're trying to avoid declaring the value of their watches and the sale on their taxes, but it's simply not worth it. The criminals are very smart these days, and they're taking advantage of high net worth individuals who are paying and transacting in cash and without using escrow. We offer an escrow service if someone wants to buy or sell their watch collection. It makes sense, and it's the only way you're going to know that you're not going to get scammed. Hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs, golf courses, cafes, these are all places where watches are disappearing. We have a retired gentleman on the golf course being approached by beautiful young women who flatter these men and take them back to hotel rooms, and the next thing you know, their Rolexes are missing. There was a gang operating in the UK called the Rolex Rippers that was doing this type of thing, flattering older men and taking their watches. It's very sad, but we're also seeing gangs operating where a client of mine went to Milan recently, and within 10 minutes of checking into his hotel, he was robbed right outside. Now, why is that? Could it be that the hotel staff knew that this guy had a Richard Mille watch on his wrist and notified some local criminals that another mark had entered the hotel? You can't exclude that possibility. It happened that fast, and it's happening that often. Criminals are going to bars. They're going to hotels. They're hanging out in the lobbies to see high net worth individuals come in and out, lashing rare watches, and then the victims are getting their watches stolen. One guy called me recently, said he was disoriented after leaving a bar. Somebody put something in his drink, and the next thing you know, his AP watch was stolen from him, so anything can happen out there. The best backstop to some of these horror stories, get your collection insured. I'll discuss this a little bit later about what kind of insurance that's being offered out there, but don't forget to update your schedules. I tell people all the time these watches are increasing in value. It's not good enough to do it every five years. You need to do it once a year, if not once every two years, because the watches are now much more valuable, and when people say, when I ask people why they weren't insured, they say to me, well, I don't know. I didn't think it could happen to me until it does. So our next slide will take us... Okay, now the watch industry is now responding to some of these horrible thefts with some interesting innovations. I am not affiliated with watch lock in any way, but I came upon them at a presentation and thought it was interesting to bring up. What they have done to combat some of these street crimes is they've created an interesting clasp that can be locked with a key, so that a criminal can't just come up to you and remove the watch from your wrist. This key has to be inserted in a certain position, and that will unlock the clasp. I understand that watch lock is now developing another model where they have a combination lock, because some people are saying, well, what if I lose the key? I can't get the watch off my wrist. That's a good point. So they've developed another one where there's a combination lock in place. Now, this is designed to avoid that street crime that I discussed, but I did have one concern is if they can't remove the watch from your wrist, how violent are they going to get, and what's going to happen next? Are we going to see watches or wrists being removed instead of just the watches? It's something to think about. Another company I'm not affiliated with in any way, Watch Certificate, they offer different certificates at different levels based on the value of the watch. What they do is 58-point checks of every watch. They will authenticate a watch. They will check to see if the watch has ever been reported stolen. They will contact the manufacturer. They will offer an escrow service. They will issue a certificate, and you've done all these things, something that will travel with the watch and give it some added value to the next purchaser. It's an interesting concept. I've had conversations with them. They're also offering these services to a number of insurers. So, this is how some of the industry is responding. Now, let me talk about a few case studies that I will scare you with. This Richard Mille Sapphire RM5601 is one of five in the world. Five watches were created. Two are in the hands of the Sultan of Brunei. So, there's three of them. My client had his watch stolen in Athens. Five men entered his home, took down an armored door, entered the safe. Five men carried off the safe, cracked it open, and took out this watch, which was the only thing in the safe. We're notified that the watch is being offered on Instagram. Now, how did we know it was the same watch? Well, interestingly, this is a sapphire crystal watch. So, if you look at the watch, the photo there, you will see the lower left-hand corner backwards in reverse, because it's the back of the watch that we're looking at, PR-03, and that was the serial number of the watch that was stolen in Athens. So, we knew that this seller, Richard 7777 and so on, was in possession of this three to five million dollar Richard Mille watch. So, I pretended to be a buyer, and that's me corresponding with Richard over here. I pretended to be a buyer, and Richard said, come to Hong Kong and bring 3.1 million dollars cash, and we will give you your watch. Now, that was not going to happen for many reasons, but I tried to get as much information as I could about Richard. He was selling some fine wine on a website, so we managed to track which building he was in, which floor he was selling from. We contacted the Hong Kong police, gave them everything on a silver platter, and they said, well, I don't think we can help you, but maybe you should have the Athens police contact us via Interpol. So, of course, we arranged for that, and finally, the Hong Kong police said, well, why don't you call Instagram? I said, well, have you ever tried contacting Instagram about something like this? They couldn't care less and apparently neither do the Hong Kong police. So this watch is still missing. It does pop up from time to time. There's a significant reward offered for its recovery. We were not able to get the police to do anything for us, but it's one of the difficulties we have in recovering stolen objects. This Richard Mille watch was reported stolen from a home in Northampton, UK. The client had a flood in his basement, of course, where he kept his most important possessions, and decided to remove the contents of the safe to his garden and let everything sit out there to dry. And next thing you know, the watch has gone missing. And the story that he told the insurer was that he had reported to his local council that deer had been entering his garden. And he suspects that a deer, a roe deer, we called it a reindeer because this was a week before Christmas. So give us a little leeway. A roe deer had entered his garden and must have taken the shiny object and removed it. And of course, this was what was reported to the insurer. And God bless our insurance company, which I won't mention, but they paid the claim. Next thing you know, the watch appears for sale in Hong Kong, having been purchased from a Dubai dealer. We then get involved, unwind the entire sale, produce the police report, acting on behalf of the insurer. We were able to recover the watch by getting everybody reimbursed. And the watch was returned to the insurance company. Another horrific London crime, a client went out to, was going out to dinner. Here's his quote, when I asked him what happened, he said, I'm leaving my residency on my way to dinner. One man, young man came from behind, twisted my arm, three other guys grabbed the watch and ran off. And of course, this $300,000 watch ended up being offered for service in Geneva, where we worked with the manufacturer who agreed to hold the watch. I went to Geneva. I was able to present all the documentation to the manufacturer and to the possessor, where we worked out an unconditional surrender of the timepiece. I worked to get back his purchase price from the person who sold him the stolen watch, and we were able to recover it for the theft victim. This took two years from the date of theft to the date of recovery, which was exactly the amount of time that we thought this watch would appear for service. Unfortunately, three weeks before the recovery, my client passed away and was never able to see the watch. I carried it myself on a plane from Geneva, terrified of even being in a taxi with it. As you can see, it looks a little ridiculous on me, but we were able to return it to the victim's son, who was happy to have a piece that belonged to his father. This is a scam that's going on. This gentleman down here was operating out of Milan. He managed to convince a collector in Singapore to bring a half a million euros worth of watches to Milan. Now, why would he do that? Well, this criminal paid for the flight from Singapore to Milan, paid for his stay at the Four Seasons Hotel in Milan. So, of course, the guy from Singapore said, well, I trust this guy. He's going to buy my watches for cash. And, of course, I'm going to accept cash because I don't have to declare cash. So when he went out to dinner with this gentleman, and the gentleman brought someone who was his wife and a child, he believed that he was going to walk away with 500,000 euros in cash in a bag. He opened the bag and saw what looked like 500,000 euros, went back to his hotel to count it, and sure enough, it was 2,000 euros of real money and the rest was just shredded paper. Why didn't he use an escrow service? I don't know. I ask that question all the time. Why wasn't he insured for any of these watches? Well, that's another good question. But it's another type of scam that's happening widespread. This Richard Mille watch was stolen from a high net worth client in Milan. The client has a home in London. He has a home in Monte Carlo. The watch appeared for sale at Antiquorum Geneva and was being sold in their Hong Kong sale room. So when I contacted the police in Milan, they said, well, it's not our responsibility. You got to go talk to the London police. The London police said, oh, he lives in Monte Carlo. Got to contact the Monte Carlo police. The watch is being offered by Antiquorum. Contact the Geneva police. Wait a minute, it's being sold in their sale room in Hong Kong. You got to deal with the Hong Kong police. Well, we all know what the Hong Kong police are capable of from the Athens example. But needless to say, we filed criminal complaints in Hong Kong, civil complaint in Hong Kong, criminal and civil complaint in Geneva, currently pending. The client is a brilliant scientist and decided to go public with this. And you may see some stories out there with his name about buying and selling watches through Antiquorum who don't cooperate with theft victims. And I don't mind saying that. I'm not worried about liability because, number one, as an attorney, I don't mind. These are facts. These are documented facts of what's happening. And we feel that the watch collecting public needs to know what's going on out there. Another example, theft in Barcelona. We're actually notified by AP that the watch has been brought in for service. What does AP do? After we tell them, well, we represent the victim. Yes, we want the watch back. They give it back to the person who brought it in for service. We're talking with AP about that particular issue. They admit they made a mistake. But now we're trying to recover this watch. And the lawyer for the possessor said, well, there's a five-year statute of limitations. You know, good luck with that. But that really isn't the case in Spain. So we're disputing that. And we now have litigation pending in Germany for this. I'm just about at the end of my time, I believe. So we've got our last slide, which is a poll for all of you. So using the data that is obtained from the thousands of stolen watches that are reported to Art Recovery International and the tens of millions of dollars worth of recoveries, let me ask you, what percentage do you think are insured? Is it 85, 50, or 30%? Do we have an answer yet? It's polls in progress. And the guess was 30%. You're all brilliant. Now, that's a problem. Why is it that high net worth individuals with millions and millions of dollars are not having their collections insured? You guys got some work to do. Whether you need me to present to your high net worth individuals and scare them senseless, I'm willing to do that. I do it all the time. You've got to figure out, why is this happening? Why are people not insuring their... You insure their homes, you insure their boats, you're not insuring their watches. Thank you very much for listening. And I hope I wasn't too blunt with my commentary. No, no, thank you, Chris. And thank you, Tani. They're both really informative presentations and certainly interesting. And yeah, the more people we insure, the better off we are. The larger the pool of insurance, that's sort of how it works. But we have a lot of really great questions that came in and some of them are doubled up and I'll try to combine those. And I'm going to do them in the order that they came in. And the first one, which is actually kind of a funny question. Someone has asked what kind of watches the presenters are wearing during this presentation. I'll tell you, I'm wearing a Garmin, which this is about as much as I'm comfortable riding the subway with. Great, love it. I've got an Ordain. There you go. Just a hairy wrist and a Timex running watch in the corner. Okay, very good. Very safe, Chris. Now, this one comes in from Paul Fritsch. I think this is the Paul Fritsch, so big shout out to him, who's known to us at the IMUA Arts and Records Committee. Do you recommend scheduling all jewelry or only above a certain limit, like $1,000 or $10,000? Is there a sort of a cutoff point where you recommend insuring jewelry? Tani, that's you. Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think it comes back to personal risk tolerance and really what values are you comfortable with. The other thing to keep in mind, the individual values of the pieces might be on the lower end. But what you don't realize is that they quickly add up. So if you have 10 items that are $1,000 each, that's $10,000. Again, I think it's worth thinking about the collection overall. Do you wear it? Where do you keep it? How is it protected? And look at then your options for coverage. But I think it's a very individual question to consider, but it's worth looking at all the options available. Okay, this one's kind of to both of you. With the recent increase in demand for these objects and the value of them and the theft that's going on, is there also an increase in fraud or fakes that are being put out into the market in these categories as jewelry and watches? It's really unbelievable what the Chinese are producing. Copies of these Richard Mille watches, they're so good. The feel is there. Sometimes only an expert can tell. So yes. Very good. Then someone's brought in this question, and if this is a claim for either of you, you certainly don't have to answer, but there was a robbery at University of Colorado football game where they robbed the player's locker room and stole a bunch of watches. Did either of you see anything on that? Did you have any thoughts on that particular case? I've not seen that story yet, but I don't think it surprises me. Again, valuables being stored in a locker room that's unattended, you know, not something to recommend. I think, again, if you're going to be in a public space and you're going to have to maybe remove your watch, maybe rethink about the watch you're going to bring, maybe take your swatch instead, or better yet, don't bring a watch as Chris mentions. So not a surprising story, but I've not come across the details on that. I saw the story and I feel bad for a lot of these sports, these professionals, because this is what they do. They have to spend their money on something and they like to go out with fancy watches, fancy cars, and the public knows this. They're posting their exploits on social media and they're getting robbed outside their hotels. It's a shame this is the world we live in, but it's a fact. Very good, thank you for that advice. To hotels, that actually follows to the next question. It was the mention of hotel safes and which should be used. Certainly, we're all familiar with the safes that are in our rooms in hotels, which are good for certain objects, I suppose. For the hotel main vault, is there sort of a cutoff point of brand of hotel that's going to have a main vault that you can access and how do you access that main vault if you want to use it? Yeah, I think most luxury hotels certainly offer their clients these types of services and the way to access the best thing is really just to reach out to the hotel ahead of time to make arrangements. And again, like the in-room hotel, you can keep some smaller items, less valuable items, but again, being how accessible they are and whether that's a default code being used or even just, again, being able to easily potentially open that safe, it's always, always best to use the hotel's main vault. Yeah, I would agree with that. Okay, and check ahead of time, you'll be able to get there, I like that. Yeah, always plan ahead, plan ahead. The Amman Hotel will have a better hotel vault than the Marriotts that I usually stay in. Yeah, understood. So this is a question about the use of home safes as opposed to bank vaults. And it's a good question because we have as an insurance industry, I think moved away from, say 25 years ago, it was very common for us to say only bank vault coverage only, you can only take it out a certain number of days a year. The industry seems to have moved more to kind of if your home safe is good enough, that works for us. Do you think that the industry should be recommending bank vaults again? Or is it really, is that kind of, is the barn door open on that or we need to work on better home security? And Tani, I'd love to get your thoughts on that. I mean, the bank vaults are a great option. I think they work really well if you're not wearing the items frequently. And we certainly do see a lot of collectors store high value pieces in a bank vault. They also typically come with a lower rate because they're kept in the bank vault for the long term. I think with the home safes, there's certainly a whole, I would say range of safes that are available in the marketplace. So it's really important to be aware that not all safes are created equal. If you are gonna store high value jewelry in your home, you really wanna make sure again, coming back to those layers of protection between the safe, the home alarm system, and just really best practices and good measures like not posting on social media, monitoring who has access to your home, who comes in and out. All of those things I think are as important as having the right type of safe. Very good, yeah. And that actually fits into another question we got about the layers of protection and whether or not that impacts rate. We don't discuss specific rates, obviously with IMUA, but anything that our clients are doing to better protect their objects is gonna impact rate for us. As underwriters, we can assess that and put it into how we rate the client. And we understand that over time, there'll be less losses. So definitely layers of protection, better safes at home. I would say to the brokers that are on the line, that if you have clients who have significant collections, they can't possibly be wearing all of it, perhaps get a double quote, get one that includes a bank vault so they can see the savings associated with it and one that includes at home. So they can see sort of what it is to have it at their fingertips. And obviously, particularly with watch collectors, Chris, I've noticed that many of them like to have them at their fingertips because they make them happy, you know, to be able to see them and change them out over time. So we also understand the need to have them at home. And the brokers need to ask their clients if they're going to be actively trading their collections because a lot of insurers like to buy and sell watches. And if they are going to be actively trading, how are they gonna move these watches and how are they gonna be insured for those journeys? Yeah, very good. And probably not a question that gets asked a lot, Chris. Thank you for that. Let's see. And there were a number of questions about the serial numbers. And so I'll combine those sort of into one. You answered a lot of those in your presentation, Chris. But one was, you know, when someone purchases the primary purchaser of a high value watch, is their name then linked to the serial number that's on that watch with the manufacturer? Their name appears on a certificate that they have purchased it. The certificate says Patek Philippe. It's got the number. It's got everything on there other than the price. That's separate on a receipt. And, you know, that stays with the watch. I mean, you could get another certificate. The watch manufacturers will not replace a lost certificate, but they will amend a certificate for the next owner. Okay. And then do you foresee a time in the future where for insurance and police claims that without that serial number, you won't be able to file those claims? Is that something that's gonna have to be recorded in the loss? Or can you still record a loss of a high value loss and say, I don't have the information on the... Well, if a watch is, you know, it has to be unique. We know that in the insurance industry. How are we gonna pay for a painting unless we know it's the actual one that was stolen? The point is, is that the serial number makes it unique. And if the watch has no serial number, but it has an inscription, you know, to my uncle Joey, you know, that's the way it becomes unique. But by and large, with the high-end watches, it's the serial number and the movement number that you want. Okay. Movement number is the same as the serial number? It's a case number and a movement number. Okay. So, and then following on that, so we have this register of stolen watches that's out there that seems to be having some impact on the marketplace. When a reseller of watches like Watchbox discovers they have a stolen object, there seems to be three interested parties there, which is the consigner, the person from whom it was stolen, and then the insurance company, who at that point may be the actual owner of the object. How do you reconcile those interested parties to the possessor of it, the reseller? It seems like it's a complicated issue to work through. Well, I immediately combine the insurer and the victim. Okay, it's the first thing I do, so that we're, I'm working for the two of them, and the only thing between them is whether the victim wants to buy it back from the insurer. So they have their same interests, even though there's just one financial difference. But as far as the complicated part is getting the possessor to give up the watch to the insurer or to the insured. And that's real, as I discussed, it depends on where it was stolen, what the laws and the jurisdiction it was stolen from, where it was found, whether we have somebody cooperative. And often I will use my services to get the possessor back their money from where they purchased it from, and so on. This way I can offer them some sort of relief if they are in fact in good faith. Okay, that, it's, again, it still sounds complicated, but it helps to understand what may happen in that situation. Then we did have one comment really, and I tend to agree, which is, the watch lock is an interesting idea. Given how violent criminals are, I'm not sure I wouldn't want to be able to give up the watch and walk away. And as an insurer, I've said this many times with Jewelers Block Insurance and Joy, I can always, we'd rather have a live insured than have the piece intact. We're happy to pay you out uninjured rather than you trying to defend insured property. So. That's one thing I usually tell people at the end of my presentations is that if you're approached by criminals, give them the watch. You can always replace it. You can't replace your watch. That's right. And then we've got, I think that brings us to the end. We did have one question on recovery rates. What do you think the recovery rates for stolen jewelry and watches are? If you could take a guess about it. Very low, very low. 10%, 5%, extremely. Yeah, it's, we won't know for some time, but at least we know with these serial numbers that we're able to identify these watches and that one day they will be spotted. And Tani, on a home, it's a burglary where they walk off with jewelry. Is there a recovery on that? Jewelry is really difficult because unlike watches, typically what happens is, you know, the gemstones and the diamonds are unmounted. Precious metal is melted, you know, unless just someone checks, you know, maybe a lab report or a GI number on a diamond, you know, and it's retraced, but typically they're taken apart. They're broken up. So jewelry is even more difficult than watches. Okay, that brings us to the end. We're right just over time. I will remind everybody, you know, please print out. You can see it in there. There's a handout with this. You can get this presentation in a PDF so that you can refer back to it later. And also you may get a survey from the IMEA. We encourage all of you to fill that out so that we can improve our presentations as we go forward. I think this was fascinating. Big thanks to the two of you for really, really interesting and informative presentation. Thank you for coming to us today. And if there are further questions, we have contact information for the IMUA and you guys. And, you know, we'll look forward to seeing, you know, maybe seeing you guys again at another presentation. Hey, Andrew, best engaged, most engaged, best question, come on. Best question is actually, and it's not only did he ask like really good questions, but he also asked a lot of them. So I got to give them to him. Alex Hilt, thank you for some very good questions. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Chris. It's a pleasure. I guess with that, I don't know. Good luck to everybody the rest of the day. Enjoy the week, Wednesday.

underwriting

theft

loss

recovery

jewelry

watches

market trends

protection measures

appraisals

insurance coverage

law enforcement

auction houses

safe storage