Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 30 2023

Now the 502nd of them all - And summer has arrived in many galleries. Many are closed until mid-August, some until early September - no wonder it's so crowded in the holiday regions during the peak season. Good for the art-loving dealers who maintain exhibition spaces in the world's recreation centres. When the weather is bad, you don't necessarily have to support the fashion industry then.

On 18.10. at 17:00, Dr. Alexander Wiebe and Dr. Stephan Zilkens will lead a discussion during Munich Highlights, moderated by Jakob Schwerdtfeger - art historian and comedian - on the topic: "Art insurance - do you need it, or can it go away?" We received the tip to contact Mr Schwerdtfeger from our readers - many thanks for this and the many other tips!

Stefan Kobel has put together a lot and the summer slump is now clearly noticeable for us. Perhaps it's time to look back to the 1980s, when art insurance was established as a product innovation in the insurance industry. Times when there were not yet 100,000 individual norms, legal ordinances and laws. Boards of directors could still decide on 200,000 DM donations for concert halls or art events without having to ask the supervisory board or face accusations of embezzlement. There was, however, the Federal Insurance Supervisory Office (BAV), based in Berlin, which controlled and approved conditions and tariffs. This was also a brake on innovation in the industry, which was not really sad about it because it limited competition. The only line of business that was not subject to supervision was marine insurance, which could not be confined to the narrow boundaries of one country and whose conditions have always been characterised by international competition. For this reason, art insurance also emerged in the environment of marine insurance, quasi as a secondary line of business, and was able to develop without supervision. It also worked without consumer protection - those who collected art preferred to communicate their bad experiences among themselves - that was no different than today. At the beginning, a private collector in Germany paid premium rates of between 0.8% and 0.6% per year, but with only 5% insurance tax - the level of premium rates has clearly moved downwards as competition has increased, while tax rates have been drastically increased - there is simply no competition between the parties when it comes to additional state revenue. In some fields of art insurance, it now seems to be all about price - especially in the competition of public tenders, and then lenders end up with covers that only reimburse 50% of the actual damage according to court rulings. It is better to use insurance whose content you can assess or to let your trusted broker assess it.

The Hampton Fine Art Fair was held at the Southhampton Fairgrounds until a severe storm flooded the tents and forced the gallery owners to cancel the fair. The loss of the event was not insured, but the exhibited goods were. The extent to which claims were made for water damage is beyond our knowledge, because it was a rather local fair in the USA. But the tent principle can be found at many other fairs - from Art Dubai to Art Miami and Unlimited as well as Frieze and Frieze Masters in London. And there are quite a few values gathered there that exceed the estimated 400 million USD at the Hampton Art Fair many times over. Up to now, one didn't have to take the weather phenomena so seriously.

Bregenz on Lake Constance is to get a new art fair in February next year in the Festspielhaus. Renger van den Heuvel, previously known from Vienna Contemporary and Spark, is to set it up with a lot of public money. It should also be ecological, which is why it has already joined the Gallery Climate Coalition. Whether this will improve the risk situation, however, will have to be decided by the insurers who provide the insurance capital for the fair.

Finally, a sad realisation: with the destruction of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa, which is a World Heritage Site, Russia has finally put itself on a par with the Taliban. It takes a lot of chutzpah to claim afterwards that the Ukrainians severely damaged their own building with their missile defence. One wonders how, with so many hateful attacks, talks can ever again be held between the peoples to achieve a fair peace.

In all the recreational activities of the next few weeks, we wish you a few thoughtful minutes that might bring us all closer to a solution.

Your Stephan Zilkens and the team of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Solothurn and Cologne