Insuring and Protecting the Priceless

Fellow appraiser Jo Desmond sent me this interesting article about stolen art and protecting art from being stolen.  As many readers of the AW Blog are aware, art crime has been rather prolific and it continues to be so.  In many areas it is not considered as seriously as it should.


The article is published online in the Epoch Times and is written by art consultant Alan Bamberger.  Bamberger touches on some of the issues museum and even private collectors face in insuring art, insuring irreplaceable items, insuring partial collections and theft incidents instead of specific artworks.  The cost to museums can be considerable, and as we are also aware, many museums are looking for ways to curtail expenses.

Bamberger states

Whether or not a work of art is “replaceable” is not the issue. The issue is getting compensated if the art is stolen. What’s better — a stolen painting and a $5 million insurance settlement or a stolen painting and a $0 insurance settlement?

“But theft insurance is way too expensive.”

Yes, the cost of insuring a museum’s entire collection is prohibitive, but thieves don’t normally steal the entire collection. They only steal part of it, and usually a pretty small part.

So insure only a part of it. Theft insurance covers “incidents,” not specific works of art, unless the insured specifies individual coverage for specific works of art in the policy. In other words, if you purchase theft insurance, you’re insured for the coverage amount no matter what gets stolen.

You may not recoup the entire amount of the loss, but at least you’ll have something.

“But insuring even our few most valuable paintings is still too expensive.”

So that’s a rationale for not insuring anything? How about this idea — pay for as much insurance as you can afford, maybe $1,000,000, maybe $10,000,000? That way, if art gets stolen, at least you have enough money to hire top quality private investigators to try and recover it, get publicity for the theft, or perhaps even pay a ransom. Or use the money to buy a state-of-the-art security system for your museum (or gallery or private collection) so that theft doesn’t happen again. Forget about whether or not art is replaceable or unique or iconic; receiving compensation for a theft is what counts, and using that compensation to either recover the art, offset the loss in revenues that may result from the art being stolen, or make life more difficult for people who steal art, so difficult, hopefully, that many will stop stealing it.

An interesting article, to read the full Epoch Times post, click HERE.