AXA Art Insurance Approved Warehouses

In the past on the AW blog I have posted on the safe storage of fine and decorative arts. AXA Art Insurance, in order to protect against future claims, hired a risk management firm to look into warehouse art storage and evaluate various storage facilities. The program called Global Risk Assessment Platform and sets basic standards for art storage facilities

According to the AXA website The objective of GRASP is to provide a single summary page for individual storage facilities which assesses specific risk/safety factors against agreed criteria. To do this, answers from over 1000 questions used by an on-site assessor are being distilled into matrices which profile the processes and functions of each individual facility. To ensure objectivity, the questioning process is binary - Yes or No. The system also "weights" those areas that we believe are more significant than others.

AXA Art launched artprotect™ during 2007's AAM conference in Chicago. Since the start of this program, there have been over 45 surveys of art storage locations in the USA alone, with more taking place in Europe, South America and Asia. In the USA there has been a thread of identified common weaknesses. These range from a lack of accountability for keys to poorly designed and installed intruder alarm systems to an absence of proper background checks on employees. In short, there is much that the art storage industry needs to do to address the primary risks that clients are exposed to.

Some of the early signs are encouraging in that the majority of art storage companies have responded positively to this program. Most have begun to implement changes to meet the standards that we believe reflect what is needed for the protection of increasingly valuable art. Many of the changes are procedural whereas some require capital expenditure. We and other insurers recognize that some of this investment cannot be committed overnight. What we are looking for is a commitment to improve standards over a realistic timeframe.

Appraisers, as a value added service need to be aware of this types of offerings and standards. Referring a client to an AXA approved warehouse for art storage would be considered a professional responsibility. The AXA site (link below) also has a list of AXA art approved storage facilities. A good list for the appraiser to have on hand.

To read the AXA Art Insurance content, click HERE.