Sandy Art Insurance Claims - Approaching $500 Million

The NY Times is reporting on the enormous amount of art losses from hurricane Sandy.  We knew the loss was going to be great, but it appears the claims for art loss will set an all time record for storm related art claims.

The article states that AXA would be paying out $40 million in claim settlements, and the the total industry wide is approaching $500 million for art loss and gallery damage claims.  This is going to be the largest payout of art related losses, according to Reuters and a Claims Journal report. If you recall, lower Manhattan and the many galleries in Chelsea saw huge losses.  With that amount in claims, there should be work for appraisals as adjustments are made in order to quickly settle.

The NY Times reports

Two months after Hurricane Sandy caused severe flooding in many Chelsea galleries, the bill for the art world’s recovery is shaping up to be hefty. By mid-November, AXA Art Insurance, one of the largest art insurers, estimated that it would be paying out $40 million, and a Reuters report last week quoted industry estimates suggesting that insurance losses for flooded galleries and ruined art may come to as much as $500 million – or the rough equivalent of what the art insurance business takes in each year. That would amount to the largest loss the art world and its insurers have ever sustained.

Included in this half-billion-dollar total, Reuters reported, is a claim for losses sustained on work by the pop artist Peter Max, whose works on paper are said to have been stored in a warehouse that was flooded. Reuters, quoting unnamed sources, put the claim on Mr. Max’s work at $300 million (although Mr. Max’s Web site, unlike those of many other artists affected by Sandy, made no mention of storm-related losses as of Friday). A message left for the representative listed on Mr. Max’s Web site was not returned on Friday.

In a telephone interview on Friday, Filippo Guerrini-Maraldi, the executive director of fine art at R.K. Harrison, a London-based insurance broker whose clients include several Chelsea galleries, said that the industry-wide figure — which he estimated at between $400 million and $500 million — covered the physical damage to the galleries themselves as well as art losses.

Source: The NY Times & Claims Journal