Who Should Have Fine Art Insurance?
If you have a business that caters to those who appreciate finer things in life, owning a fine art gallery or museum is right up there among them. Both federal and state laws require every business with employees to carry workers’ compensation insurance, unemployment, and disability insurance. As that implies, the insurance only covers those items, and all other coverage is up to the business owner, and this includes whether to have fine art insurance.
What is Fine Art Insurance?
Art collection, appreciation, and sales have been growing steadily over the last two decades, and this has led to more and more people interested in setting up shop to sell fine art. If you are one of them, then one of the questions you are grappling with is whether to have fine art insurance. As you probably already know, fine art insurance is coverage that protects art collectors in case the art is stolen, lost, or damaged.
This is a specialized type of insurance policy that protects coverage over and above what a typical household property policy would cover, and those who have the coverage can rest easy knowing the value of their collection is preserved for their offspring and future generations.
Types of Items that Can Be Insured
The type of art that can be covered by a fine art insurance policy depends on the risk tolerance of each individual collector or art owner. According to insurance specialists, “art and objects worth insuring under a fine art policy come in many descriptions. These may be snuff boxes and coins, or vast canvasses and monumental sculptures. They may be made of precious metals, precious stones, or everyday materials, like paper or clay. Can be stone, metal, or even liquid. Some are ancient, and others are the work of living artists.”
In other words, what should be covered under a fine art insurance policy is a subjective matter, but it may be a good idea to have a fine art policy if you have:
- A unique piece of art that will be hard or impossible to replace
- A collection of fine objects whose collective value would fall if one piece in the collection were lost or damaged
- Artworks that you lend to exhibitions or museums
- Highly valuable art pieces in storage
- Fragile, delicate, or antique original art pieces
What Fine Art Insurance Covers
Although most fine art policies have a provision that says coverage is for “all risks,” this is a misleading notion because if you read the fine print of the policy, you will find there are always some things that are excluded from the coverage. However, all policies will provide coverage for things like fire and theft, while at the same time providing compensation for accidents and loss of value.
Contact us
Once you have decided to insure your fine art, the next step is to find the right insurance policy for your art collection or art you have for sale. That is exactly what we have waiting for you at Face Insurance, where we insure the priceless. Contact us for more information. Call: 916-721-2845
