Gold jewellery stolen from home in London – cleaner + random “plumber” same day. Has anyone ever recovered anything?

Posting anonymously because I’m honestly devastated and my head is all over the place.
A significant amount of gold jewellery has gone missing from my house, including 2 large 22k gold bangles belonging to my mum, plus some smaller earrings and baby bracelets. There was also a boxed iPhone 15 Pro taken – it was broken and basically worthless, but looked brand new sitting in the box.
I definitely put my mum’s bangles in a jacket in a downstairs wardrobe in late August. Around 2 weeks later my regular cleaner came in the morning and left around lunchtime. She’s self employed, I found her through Nextdoor after local recommendations and I use her around 1–2 times a month.

She’s actually been the best cleaner I’ve had after a long list of bad ones, which is why this is so hard. Over the last few years little bits of jewellery have gone missing, but I always put it down to me being tired, forgetful, on maternity leave etc. I even stopped using her for a long period during my last maternity leave 2 years ago after something went missing because it made me anxious.

About an hour after she left this time, a man turned up saying he was there about a water/plumbing issue. My husband and I had recently spoken about needing someone because of a leak, so I stupidly assumed he had arranged him and let him in. I was working from home so I wasn’t hovering over either of them the whole time. The man was only in the house around 15 minutes and then left. My husband later said he had arranged nobody.

What is really messing with my head is that nobody else had been in the house during that whole period apart from these 2 people. This time it just feels different and more calculated, but I genuinely don’t know who did it or whether there is any connection between them at all.

To make it even worse, my Ring doorbell battery died after only capturing my cleaner leaving. I had taken it off to charge so I could put it back before picking my kids up from school. Honestly couldn’t have been worse timing.

CCTV/witnesses are basically a dead end too. Most of the houses directly around and opposite us have recently been sold and people have moved out, there’s a building site across the road, and the one neighbour who might have seen anything is elderly, recently moved in and doesn’t have cameras.

I reported it online to the Met and was shocked that 2 officers turned up at my house within about 4 hours to take a proper statement and give me a crime reference number. They took the cleaner’s details too. They have advised me to call pawn brokers and gold buyers and also I should be able to claim against my home insurance.

I’m now trying pawnbrokers/gold buyers to see if anything turns up.

Has anyone in London/UK had anything similar happen? Did police actually investigate? Did anyone ever recover jewellery?

Also interested in home insurance experiences. I’ve been with Policy Expert for around 5 years in total, apart from 1 year where I switched to a cheaper company, so I’ve gone back to them regularly. I’ve never made a home insurance claim before and I have Policy Expert Silver. I have photos and some purchase evidence but no formal jewellery valuation and can’t find receipts. Tbh most of them were gifts from parents and family as it’s cultural to gift gold especially to babies etc .

I’m almost 6 months pregnant and this has completely floored me. I’m barely sleeping or eating and my mum is coming back from abroad soon. The fact the main bangles are hers is what is killing me.

And yes before anyone says it, I know I am stupid - I can’t believe it myself