Fine Art Insurance is a type of policy that will cover a wide range of items including; paintings, objects art or for that matter any item that is appreciated for its creative, imaginative or aesthetic content.
It will provide cover for these items but unless you have a large collection or a high net worth home insurance, you are likely to have to obtain cover under you own standard home policy. Cover will be the same as the remainder of your belongings insured under the general section.
The problems start when your art or collection of objects reaches a certain threshold. Under most standard insurance policies, there is a restriction in the amount of “valuable” items that can be covered and this threshold is typically between 20 and 30% of your total sum insured. There may also be a single article limit of say 5% of the sum insured.
The options for a home owner are thus:
- Purchase a high net worth policy from an insurer with fewer restrictions, however this may not always been possible as often these insurers have a minimum general contents sum insured they will consider before you become eligible to be a policyholder.
- Buy a separate policy just covering your art.
At Assetsure, we have a separate art insurance policy and we are also able to cover single items or collections, thus if you have just one painting or object, perhaps an inherited item, we will be able to provide cover for you on a World Wide all risks basis. As well as providing cover for the standard perils you would expect, such as fire and theft, we include a number of other inclusive covers, which can be useful. These include:
Death of the Artist. It is well known that following the death of an artist, the price for works can increase quite quickly and often before you are aware of it. Under our policy, we automatically increase the sum insured by up to 100% for the 6 months following the artist’s death.
Defective Title. Most collectors are careful when they buy items to check provenance but there can be occasions when after a purchase someone claims the item is rightfully theirs. If you are obliged to return an item because it is proved you do not have good title, then we will reimburse you the amount paid
New Acquisitions. Sometimes it is not always possible to inform your insurer about a new purchase immediately and thus we allow our policyholders’ up to 30 days to advise us about new purchases. During this period we will allow for an increase of up to 25% in the sum insured proving of course you do inform us of the purchase during this period.
For full details of these covers including terms and conditions please contact our office. Our trained staff will be pleased to assist you with your enquiry. Alternatively, you can complete a Fine Art Insurance quote request form and we will contact you as soon as possible.
