Framing can be pretty expensive, if you feel it's worthwhile to insure it, there must be framing shops that would charge some sort of valuable replacement value.
Unless I were selling prints and the walls were covered with my inventory, I wouldn't bother to insure, and would find some sort of earthquake proof method of displaying things.
I had two or three boxes of 16x20 prints dry-mounted/window matted 20x24 invaded by ants and used as nests. When I finally discovered it, I laid all the prints on the driveway to let the ants leave and to see if any were undamaged. Then it started to rain. All went into a dumpster. Did not even think about filing a claim -- but I guess I should have. There was the equivilent of 50 or so full sheets of 4 ply white rag board there. Depends on what the deductable was at that time...can't remember.
On the bright side, for many years I matted 16x20 prints 20x24, because I could cut two 20x24's out of a full sheet, so I could afford it. Just too small of a mat...always bugged me (I now would do 24x28). So I don't have to store all those not-quite-rightly matted prints that took up a lot of space -- and for most of them I have a second and sometimes third print of each ready to mat someday. Which is good because a lot of them are on Portriga Rapid III and the old Ilford Gallerie. The former is not replaceable, the latter no problem to reprint if I had to.
"Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China
So then I take it that whether or not they are “inventory” awaiting sale or personal decorative art, if I were to suffer a loss then all I could claim would be the actual cost of replacing the frame, glass, board, dry-matt sheet, backer-board, etc., which in the case of the 8x10’s come to ~$55 each. If the negatives survived, they could be reprinted but the time to reprint each salt print in about 2 hours from the time the coated and dried sheet is first exposed to the sun to when it is hanging to dry.
Thomas
Unless you want to place a much higher value and pay your insurance broker the extra fee to accomodate this.. Everything is possible, do you feel the cost of insurance would be worth it.
In my enviournment I have to have a rider to cover ART prints , which are always being recorded with my broker.. my monthly fee can fluctuate depending on whats in the shop at any given time.
Originally Posted by tgtaylor
Unless you have an established track record of being "collectible" it is all arbitrary - it's whatever you decide you WANT to insure it for, along with whatever
insurance premium you're willing to pay. It might make more sense just to not bother, and see what the coverage limit of your "personal belongings" already is.
Do you already have earthquake insurance per se? It's pretty damn expensive, with giant deductibles. I'd rather put that money into structural upgrades to the
property that make it more resistant to quakes in the first place, because any shaker that would do enough damage to the building to overcome the deductible
would probably be so large overall that it would bankrupt the insurance company itself, or cause it to defacto default in any major urban area. I live just a few
blocks from the infamous Hayward fault, but bought a lot underlain by granite rather than mudstone. That makes a massive difference. One more thing - once
you have put something on paper with an "official" value, just remember that the IRS can use that on your heirs, and force them to come up with cash for the
alleged value. It happens.
this will not work for you in my opinion. Without question you will be paying the higher premium on the value you declared, but don't expect to get that amount of money back if you have a loss. We also went through a similar situation when getting our home owners policy. We have numerous paintings done by my wife's mother. She studied under one of Canada's "group of seven" and while alive sold a number of her paintings in the $1000 to $2000 range each. We of course no longer have those records of her sales. So we were told, as others have told you above, that we would only get a nominal amount in case of a loss. To get the appropriated "market value" for the art work there has to be a record of a number of independent (i.e. third party) sales, such as through a gallery of that artists work in order for the insurance company to pay out the higher amount. And even then I suspect you would still have a hard time. Insurance companies don't like to pay out….
I was highly involved in supplying the construction trade after the giant Oakland Hills fire here a number of years back. Ironically, I had supplied the house directly adjacent to where that fire began with a lot of stuff in the first place. All that dead eucalyptus from the previous winter's freeze made my hair stand on end, but that's a different aspect of the story. But this couple had many millions of dollars worth of privately commissioned paintings and sculpture by a particular world-famous artist literally bolted down all over the place (to discourage theft). Insured for full value of course. But with a fire that catastrophic and expensive, lots of homeowner's didn't see a dime of insurance compensation for up to a five year rate, unless they agreed to a ridiculously unrealistic level of compensation based on Midwestern labor rates and tract-home style reconstruction. It depended on the carrier of course, but a couple of major ones largely
defaulted up till the point they were criminally convicted - but it was either stall to rebuild capital or they would have simply declared bankruptcy. And Fed emergency bailout is just a low-interest loan kind of thing to get you on your feet a bit faster. But the short version of the story is, these guys were screwed as far as the artwork was concerned, and they owned a law firm! The insurance carrier was deliberately employing convicted criminals to handle claims, just to
bog down the whole process. That's one of the reasons that I personally wouldn't even bother with anything beyond a basic policy rider covering household items, and if there is spare time, documenting your "stuff" (including particularly valued prints) with a digital camera or whatever.
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