Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 43 2022

From 14.11. the exhibition "Worth Fighting For" with works of contemporary Ukrainian art combined with positions from the Museum für Hedendaagse Kunst in Antwerp and parts of the Russian War Crimes will take place in Cologne and can be seen every day for 4 weeks. Admission is free. In preparation, we are in contact with the team of the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kyiv. It's a queasy feeling when, in the middle of a phone call, the person you're talking to is asked to take cover because drones are approaching again. But these people know that they are also fighting for our freedom. Minister of State Claudia Roth will open the exhibition together with the new Ambassador of Ukraine. Despite the most generous public funding, there is still a gap in the financing for which we are asking for donations. These can be transferred to the account : Rotary Deutschland Gemeindienst e.V. IBAN DE80 3007 0010 0394 1200 00 and please write in the reason for transfer: Club Nr. 21929 Project 0219292322 "Worth Fighting For". You will then receive a tax-deductible donation receipt.

Cyber is the new fire risk, as they say in the insurance industry. And where one does not know exactly what the risk actually is, one generously excludes it from the previously known insurance lines (e.g. property, transport, technical insurance, liability) in order to then offer it again via separate products - an exercise that was already done years ago in Germany and England with the exclusion of the terrorism risk from the fire risk. But in contrast to the inclusion of terrorism, which most insurance locations can safely do without, cyber is a much less assessable risk. For reinclusion, clauses are used that have been developed by the association of non-life insurers - which is not entirely unobjectionable from an antitrust point of view. It becomes more difficult if the re-insurance is limited to one million euros, as in the case of transport and storage insurance, and it is not clear whether the manipulation of a fire alarm or burglar alarm system leads to a restriction of the insurance cover if there is a fire or a burglary. Attempts to talk to risk carriers about deviations from this approach, which is problematic under antitrust law, are usually blocked with the reference to "the reinsurers" and the classic risks are not insurable via cyber insurance. Reinsurers are often used as an excuse when primary insurers do not want to make a business decision. However, many board members of all genders of insurance companies are no longer in a position to assess risks from a practical point of view, because they stay away from the risks protected by reporting levels. Instead, they look at the dangers threatening them from their shareholders once they dare to come out of the woodwork - mainstream, then, because that's what everyone does, and hide behind the reinsurers. Or sink a few million into start-ups, that doesn't bother you, that's what everyone does - and with luck you've caught the one that can really be scaled and continue dreaming of Biontech.

The insurance industry is also not covering itself with glory when it comes to insuring risks in Ukraine. Even classic risks are not insured by most of them, with reference to Russia's military incursion. The risk of war can be clearly defined and excluded - everyone understands that. But there are soft factors that have to be taken into account in order to gain broad support for the above-mentioned lack of practical experience on the part of high-ranking decision-makers. In Moscow, there is someone who is very happy about this: the supposedly lonely man in the Kremlin, who is being helped by Western insurers to stop protecting investments and material assets in Ukraine. The industrial insurance-taking economy is upset about it, the one connected with art and culture should be too. With clear definitions and a willingness to establish a common will to cover between the risk carrier and the client, and to get the claims adjusters on board, it should actually be possible - you just have to want it, and some people want it ...

Or to put it in Wolf Biermann's words: "Don't let yourself become hardened in these hard times. Those who are too hard break, those who are too sharp stab and break off at once."

In this spirit, we wish you an art-filled week - Munich Highlights and Paris+ are behind us - Art Cologne is in sight and on Tuesday is Deloitte's Art and Finance Meeting in Rome.

Yours sincerely, Stephan Zilkens and the team of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Cologne and Solothurn.