David Codling & Barry Vickery, Howden, on How Jewellery Retail Really Works

For most people, jewellery is the most expensive thing they ever carry out of a shop. The trade that sells it runs on detail almost nobody outside it sees, and David Codling and Barry Vickery of Howden take that detail apart as the brokers who arrange its cover.

The first half of the episode is about protection. Smoke generating systems that fill a shop in three or four seconds and pushed armed robbery off the shop floor and onto the road. Why cybercrime pulled criminals away from physical robbery, and what that changed in the shops. Why stock records matter more than they look, and what a jeweller has to be able to prove. Along the way, what happened when pre-owned watch prices went through the roof and then collapsed, and why lab-grown diamonds changed what people actually buy.

The second half of the episode turns commercial. What jewellers are insuring beyond their stock, where the Loxa and Howden partnership fits, and the thinking at the centre of it. When a customer claims, the replacement should go back to the jeweller who made the sale, which turns a claim into a second sale rather than a customer lost. This episode is for jewellers, and for retailers who want to know how a close-knit trade actually operates.

About Howden
Howden is an international insurance broker headquartered in London. Its fine art, specie and jewellery practice arranges cover for jewellers, galleries, vault operators and precious metals storage, including jewellers block policies for retail and wholesale businesses across the UK and Republic of Ireland.