Insurance

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 may feel that a professional valuation of all your property is best and if required Besso (see below) can arrange this for you, or LAPADA can supply you with the names of professional valuers. 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.

Besso Limited

Besso Limited, International Division, is the sole appointed Broker to LAPADA and offers an unrivalled personal service, discounted premiums and comprehensive cover precisely tailored to individual requirements.

Besso is an old Italian family name, steeped in centuries of insurance tradition. After a brief period as a subsidiary of one of the major international broking organisations, Besso was re-established in London as an independent company in 1995. It has a proven record of providing specialist services to art and antiques professionals, private collectors and the owners of valuable art and antiques worldwide and its experts have between them many years of experience in the field, enabling them to meet today’s insurance challenges and provide creative insurance solutions to meet their clients’ needs.

If you arrange your insurance through Besso, depending on the nature of the risk, we will almost certainly offer a free security risk survey which would be conducted by a qualified independent surveyor. It would be expected, of course, that any improvements the surveyor asks to be carried out are done within a reasonable amount of time.

We are here to help you and give you peace of mind. We will not only provide you with useful advice on how to protect your valuables but we will also be there to give you every kind of help and support should the worst happen.

For further information, contact Michael Collinson on 020 7480 1094, email: mikecollinson@besso.co.uk www.besso.co.uk