Insurance

[This information comes from the LAPADA website with their permission. You may read the entire unedited information on their website by clicking here.]

Why do you need to insure?

It is important that you safeguard your valuable possessions against the potential risks not only of theft but also of many kinds of accidental damage that unfortunately can happen all too often.

There are many unforeseen risks associated with the home and its contents.There are also risks for valuable items that you may have to remove from time to time either for personal use, such as wearing jewellery, or when an item from your collection needs to be taken out of the house for purposes such as restoration, cleaning or valuation. Many insurance policies set low sum insured limits for items taken away from the home and indeed some will offer either very restricted cover or no cover at all. Clearly this is not suitable if valuables are to be insured correctly.

It is important that your valuables are covered against as many eventualities as possible but please note that most insurers will exclude any damage caused whilst a piece is actually being worked upon. For example, in the case of a painting being framed and damaged in the process, this would normally be the responsibility of those who caused the damage.

How do you ascertain the correct value to insure?

The best way is to evaluate on a room-by-room basis the total value at risk and to have all your valuables - antiques, paintings, jewellery etc - properly valued by an independent valuer. You will almost certainly be very surprised once you have the total and quite probably find that you are significantly underinsured.

What are your responsibilities?

It must always be borne in mind that at all times you must act as if you are not insured. In other words, you must take great care of your possessions and keep them as secure as possible to mitigate any possible loss - insurers do not look favourably at carelessness or a poorly protected risk.