What we insure

Wine Collection Insurance

 

 

Wine Collection Insurance

If you’re a wine enthusiast with an impressive wine collection, you no doubt get immense pleasure from scoring that elusive bottle and serving exactly the right wine on exactly the right occasion. A wine collection can bring an immense amount of joy and pride, and your collections can also be immensely valuable – to you personally and in terms of the value of each individual bottle. Your wine collection, however, is also vulnerable to damage and loss, and obtaining the specialized coverage you need from a wine collection insurance professional near you is the surest way to ensure that your valuable collection is covered.

Your Homeowner’s Insurance

The most important point to make when it comes to ensuring your wine collection is that your homeowner’s coverage is not going to make the grade. Wine and spirits simply aren’t included in these policies, and even if you could obtain a floater policy to extend to the bottles in your collection – or a stand-alone valuable items policy – it’s very, very unlikely that it will be nuanced enough to cover the kinds of damage and losses to which wine collections can succumb. In fact, to comprehensively cover your wine collection, you need a wine collection insurance policy that is crafted specifically for your collection.

Considering Ullage

A prime example of one of the nuanced categories of loss that a valuable wine bottle can face is called ullage. At its most basic, ullage refers to the little gap between a wine bottle’s cork and the wine in the bottle. But it goes beyond this, and if the wine bottle is not completely airtight, this gap can slowly fill with oxygen, which can lead to oxidation and further kinds of wine damage. Without a specific wine collection insurance policy, damage such as ullage is extremely unlikely to be covered.

Wine Collections Are Utterly Unique

Your wine collection is susceptible to unique kinds of damage – and to more mundane types. A savvy wine collection insurance professional will discuss all of the following with you – in relation to your collection and your coverage:

  1. Your strategy for protecting your collection from damage caused by fire, climate/temperature fluctuations, damage in transit, and accidental breakage. Wine bottles are obviously made of glass, which is susceptible to breakage, but the wine itself is also extremely vulnerable to temperature extremes and direct sunlight.
  2. Protecting your wine from damage caused by a breakdown in your climate control system.
  3. Your strategy for protecting your bottles from label damage (valuable bottles tend to be more valuable when the label is kept pristine).

Considering Theft

It’s important to address loss by theft more thoroughly. The fact is that a single bottle in your collection – especially if it’s the jewel of your collection or a prized find – can be not only extremely valuable but also quite portable and easy to steal. Although you no doubt store your valuable collection in a state-of-the-art wine cellar that is ideal for physically protecting your bottles, it may not do enough to dissuade theft. The fact is that theft is often a crime of convenience – regardless of what the movies would have us believe – and lifting an exceptionally rare and valuable bottle could be the work of just a minute. Further, once you’ve lost a bottle to theft, you’re very unlikely to have it returned to you.

Your Insurance Strategy

Wine collections have exacting insurance needs that are typically approached in one of two ways, including:

  1. The traditional approach is called scheduling, and with this method, you insure each bottle in your collection.
  2. A more modern approach is to use a blanket policy, which provides aggregate coverage that allows a per-bottle limit. Once you meet the aggregate for which you purchased coverage, the coverage ends. This is often preferable for consumable collections – like wine – because it’s less likely that you’ll need to inform your insurance broker every time you enjoy, purchase, or sell a bottle.

Seek the Professional Guidance of an Experienced Wine Collection Insurance Broker

At FACE Insurance, our robust wine collection insurance professionals share the collector’s enthusiasm for his or her diverse collection, and we’re committed to helping you protect each and every one of your bottles – to ensure that each preserves its value and is enjoyed at its peak. Because you’re serious about your collection, we’re serious about crafting the best insurance coverage for your carefully curated collection. We have the experience, passion, and resources to help, so please don’t wait to obtain the best coverage you need by contacting FACE today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Your should contact the police as soon as possible. The quicker you act, the faster the authorities will be able to collect information regarding your stolen item. Your insurance agent should also be notified right after you have made contact with the police.

The most common way art is stolen is Burglary. It’s important that your installations have proper security in order to prevent these crimes from happening. Its also very important to make sure that the staff you higher to give your building maintenance has a clean record and has no criminal history.

Its responsibility of the insurance carrier to work with the FBI to recover the art that was stolen. It’s possible that you may be asked to work with the corresponding authority.

If your valuable art items are not insured, your efforts will have to be focused on working with the authorities to recover your stolen items. The odds of recovering your stolen items is very low.

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