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Art and photography
Brush with danger
Whether it is CryptoPunk #5822 selling for 8,000 ETH or the Mona Lisa being valued at over $800 million, art – real or intangible, is big business and the risks of theft and damage come with hefty price tags.
In 2012, Claude Monet’s Argenteuil Basin with A Single Sailboat was punched and Mark Rothko’s Black on Maroon was daubed with paint. In 2022, a man broke into the Dallas Museum of Art, shattering glass display cases with a metal stool and damaging several ancient works, including three Greek artifacts and a Native American contemporary ceramic.
As well as insuring art in galleries and on tour, London Market underwriters provide guidance how to make sure the packers, shippers and security are picture perfect.
Grace Best-Devereux
Loss Adjuster
If you’re lucky enough to own an artwork by Andy Warhol or have a collection of antiques that are damaged, chances are it could be Grace Best-Devereux who comes knocking at your door...
Read Grace's profile
If you’re lucky enough to own an artwork by Andy Warhol or have a collection of antiques that are damaged, chances are it could be Grace who comes knocking at your door. Grace is a loss adjuster specialising in fine art and photography. “I’m the face of insurance,” she jokes. But she has a point.
Loss adjusters are specialists who investigate when things go wrong. If an insured artwork or photograph is damaged, Grace’s job is to assess the damage, consider whether it can be repaired and report to the insurers the facts at hand. Grace calculates an accurate value for the item, connects artworks with the best restorer for the job and, if the piece is damaged beyond repair, makes payment recommendations so that owner can be compensated. But that’s not as simple a task as you might think.
“I may have to do a lot of financial analysis and research,” Grace explains. “The value of art is not fixed. For example, if the artist died in the last year, the value will probably have risen. I’ll also confirm the history of the artwork and possibly conduct a full investigation on the situation of the loss. Art claims can, on occasion, be fraud.”
Born in America, with a British dual citizenship, Grace was always drawn to the art world and began her career as a sculptor. After working for a fine art museum in Seattle, she moved to London to complete a Masters’ degree with the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, where she published her dissertation on insuring contemporary art. After a stint as a gallery manager, she joined a Lloyd’s insurance broker before moving to loss adjuster McLarens.
“I started as a sculptor,” she says, “but realised I wanted a career related to the business side of the art market. Now I see and interact with art and artists of all kinds.” As an adjuster, Grace spends much of her time building collaborative relationships with the insurance companies that sell these specialist policies and the brokers who deal with the client. Her work takes her to art galleries, museums, storage facilities, vineyards, and the homes of wealthy wine collectors.
Tim Stevens
Fine Art Underwriter
Despite having no background in the world of art, Tim spends his work life helping museums, art collectors and dealers to protect valuable paintings and sculptures against accidents and damage.
Read Tim 's profile
Despite having no background in the world of art, Tim spends his work life helping museums, art collectors and dealers to protect valuable paintings and sculptures against accidents and damage.
Tim has worked for Hiscox, a leading insurance company, for four years but his route into the art world was an unconventional one.
He studied Economics with Spanish at The University of Birmingham and wanted to live and work in a multi-lingual environment, so he got an internship with Admiral in Seville. “I loved working for Admiral but the work was very much about car and home insurance for individuals, so when I thought about a career in financial services, my initial thoughts went down the well-trodden path of banking.
“But because I had insurance on my CV, I got a call from a recruiter who explained to me about the London market, the types of large and complex risks it works with, and I saw that insurance was much broader and more interesting that the bit I had seen. Every day you hear something on the news that affects our clients and touches your work.”
Tim’s lack of any formal background in the art world has not posed a problem in the development of his career. “At the end of the day, art is an asset which has a value. Understanding the analytics of what you might charge for a policy and what it covers is the important part. Things like what the piece is, where and how it is being displayed and whether it is being moved are all key considerations.”
“Art is both dynamic and quirky” continued Tim “which means that there is always something new to learn. It is also a global business which give plenty of opportunity to travel. I have been to Australia twice over the past twelve months which is not something I expected at all.”
Tim, supported by Hiscox is also cracking on with his professional qualification, looking to pass the exams to achieve the Advanced Diploma in Insurance through the Chartered Insurance Institute. “There is a lot that is technical about what we do, and you need to get to grips with that, but it is also incredibly social and you build great relationships with your colleagues and also brokers and competitors.”
Emma White
Senior Underwriter
Not every job will give you a chance to work on the world’s greatest art collections – but it’s all in a day’s work for Emma.
Read Emma's profile
Emma works for insurer Liberty Specialty Markets, working on a team thinking about what could possibly go wrong in the art world, and how much it might cost someone to put right. An English literature graduate from the University of Exeter, she spent a day working in Lloyd’s of London, the heartland of specialty insurance, and was hooked. “I loved it! At the end of the day, I knew I’d found what I wanted to do. The people, the culture, it all just clicked.”
Art is an international business and as part of a team based in London, Emma travels frequently. She was in New York in April 2022, Malta in May and in June she went to the TEFAF art fair in the Netherlands. Later in the year she hopes to travel more to visit her colleagues, brokers, and clients.
Emma says: “You don’t need to understand art from the beginning – although I have since taken a course in art history to learn more. Our main requirement is to understand it as an asset. We need to know what it is, where it’s being displayed, what damage could happen to it, and whether someone could repair it. Context is key.”
As Emma builds her career, she sees the value of professional qualifications, so has passed the exams to be an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute and is working towards her Fellowship.
Her maths and economics A levels have been useful. She says: “You need numeracy. We’re a financial services company. We price things, we have business plans, every policy is a contract. But you’ve also got to be good with people and enjoy the networking. The London market is a very social place.”
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