Many collectors, galleries, and museums treat art shipping insurance as the final step in protecting their precious collections during transit. Yet, even having a comprehensive policy may not be enough for a wide variety of damage and loss scenarios. You may be surprised to know what art shipping insurance does not cover, but knowing this in advance is vital to secure your financial interests. What seems to offer blanket, or universal, coverage is rarely so in reality, and numerous exclusions, buried in fine print, stand out when you’re getting ready to file a claim.

What Art Shipping Insurance Does Not Cover: Inherent Vice

The exotic term ‘inherent vice’ is a commonly misunderstood insurance exclusion that causes many unpleasant consequences for art owners. It is used to denote damage that originates within the artwork, meaning that any art object made of fragile, organic, naturally decaying materials may fail over time independently of external events.

The inherent vice concept may be easily applied to avoid compensation if the art object bears the signs of wear and tear or gradual deterioration typical of fine art. An insurer’s assessment targets the identification of whether damage occurred because of an external influence or not. If the company manages to prove that the canvas was already cracking before shipment under the influence of age and without proper conservation measures, or the photograph has already been exposed to fading, none of the losses will be compensated by the insurance agency.

Improper Packaging and Crating

Another common reason for dropping an insurance claim is neglect of professional packaging, shipping, and crating. Insurance companies monitor an art owner’s compliance with safe, expert-level fine art handling practices and deny compensation for all cases where DIY or insufficient safety precautions were made to ensure the art object’s safety. In these situations, the broker shifts responsibility for damage to the art owner, whose reckless treatment of their property caused damage.

Environmental Damage

Surprisingly, insurance companies may also refuse to issue compensation if climate-related damage occurs to the artwork. This is a gray area of art shipping insurance because one can hardly allocate the cause of damage to a specific actor. For instance, ruinous condensation may occur because of improper crate sealing or inadequate packaging, which shifts the responsibility to other participants of the logistics chain from the insurer.

Now that you know what art shipping insurance does not cover, it’s time to take all the needed precautions to keep your collection safe. Don’t forget that even the most comprehensive insurance coverage doesn’t remove your responsibility for art protection and conservation. All procedures with fragile, delicate artworks should be properly planned and professionally executed.