Last week an artist emailed to ask about insuring work while in the studio, in galleries, in transit, at shows, and so on. I figured this would make a worthwhile blog post, so I’ll share what I know and do and ask everyone else to chime in.
In the studio: our home insurance is with Allstate, and I had talked specifically with them about insurance for paintings in our house. That conversation is lost in the dim mists of time, and I should probably revisit it, but I think we decided that no special rider was needed at that point, and that the general house coverage would do it. I’m not sure now that this is the right/best answer; however, I don’t generally have a lot of work here at any one time.
In transit: I used to use UPS for all my shipping needs, because it’s easy to pay extra for coverage of up to $5000 on a box (and I pack very carefully). However, I had some frustrating experiences with UPS in the last year - damage to frames on 3 different shipments within 3 months - and they gave me such a huge hassle and runaround on the frame replacement that I switched to FedEx. At least one of my galleries told me they’ve done the same thing for the same reasons. However, FedEx won’t insure past $500, so I have generally used them only for shipping smaller pieces.
I’ve recently needed to send several commissions to a collector in Canada, and used UPS for that because I felt it imperative to insure the pieces fully. Just ask me how fun it is to fill out paperwork for this (commercial invoice, NAFTA free trade forms, declarations of value, assignment of customs fees … all in triplicate). It took 45 minutes on the phone with UPS the first time to do it all correctly.
At galleries: any reputable gallery should have wall-to-wall fine art coverage. Be sure your gallery contract states this.
At shows: every exhibition with which I’ve dealt has insurance for the work while it’s there. The “Birds in Art” show even goes so far as to pay all shipping and insurance fees for the art as well; you just pack it up and put on the FedEx label they give you. Since I don’t do booth shows, though, I can’t speak to insurance at those types of events.
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