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Fine Art, Jewellery & Specie

Specie is a niche insurance market protecting highly valuable assets, such as fine art, jewellery, cash, and cryptocurrency. Our specialist brokers work with insurers to develop tailored solutions that can protect your assets up to their full value.
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The global economic climate has seen low interest rates, rising inflation, and an increase in the value of assets such as gold, art, and collectibles.

Bank notes, fine art, jewellery, precious stones and metals, wine, vintage cars, memorabilia, classic films, natural history collections, antiques, furniture, and textiles are highly sought after valuable assets that require protection, whether they are in transit or on-site.

In an increasingly digital world, cryptocurrencies, digital art, and the emerging asset class of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) also can be added to this list. So can luxury brands, which continue to experience increases in sales.

Taken together, valuables today are at risk from both physical and digital threats.

The need for extremely high limits and flexibility reflects the importance of expertise in handling these types of assets and exposures. Equally important are specialist claims advisors and loss adjusters.

For 40 years, Marsh’s Specie team has been using its specialized market and industry knowledge to work with insurers to create tailored fine art and specie insurance solutions for organizations and individuals.

Our dedicated Specie specialists can provide you with the solutions you require, whether you mine, create, store, sell, display, handle, and/or transport valuables. We can help you secure innovative policy coverage that challenges market standards and provides you with a high-quality and efficient claims service to meet any loss challenge that you may experience.

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FAQs

Given the values associated with fine art and specie, these assets are subject to numerous physical and digital risks. Ninety percent of all specie losses are caused by employee theft, and 90% of fine art losses are caused by accidental damage. Other causes of loss include: robbery, mysterious disappearance, fire or flood damage, cyber risk, electronic funds transfer, and transit.

Marsh works with a number of external expert consultants to understand your risk in detail and then presents your risk to select insurers in order to achieve a fit-for-purpose insurance policy for you.

Fine art and specie insurance protects fine art, precious metals, cash, and high-value property, whether held on premises or in transit, against physical loss or damage.

Insurance coverage is generally available for the following categories of valuables:

  • Gold, silver, palladium and other precious metals from mining to consumption
  • Jewellery manufacturers, wholesalers, and/or retailers
  • Cash in transit
  • Fine art and collectibles
  • Classic cars
  • Automatic teller machines
  • Cryptocurrency and digital art
  • Luxury brands

Fine art and specie policies generally provide “all risks of physical loss or damage” coverage. However, there are some limited exclusions such as:

  • War and terrorism
  • Nuclear, chemical, and biological events
  • Owner fraud
  • Cyber

Who purchases fine art and specie insurance depends on the nature of the valuables they mine, create, sell, store, display, handle, and/or transport.

Buyers can include corporations, financial institutions, retail and wholesale businesses, traders, specialized logistics companies, storage companies, mining companies, museums, specialist galleries, auction houses, universities, libraries, online retailers, private individuals, and more.

As values have increased over the years, organizations that once would have protected their valuable assets under a simple property or contents policy are now realizing the value of specialist specie cover.

Specie policies are much more flexible and provide coverage, created by dedicated specie brokers and insurers, tailored to purchasers’ requirements. Unlike other standard policies, specie policy wordings can be adapted depending upon a client’s requirements and business.

For example, the basis of valuation in a specie policy is often specified as the purchase price, or the current market value, whichever is higher. Such a clause is most relevant to fine art claims.

Most importantly, specie policies respond to claims in a manner that protects purchasers’ valuable assets. We have seen this with universities, libraries, museums, mines, jewellery stores, banks, and many others.

Yes. These policies can cover worldwide transit of assets.

How much cover you are able to buy will depend on the value and location of your asset.

With our diverse product range and experience across a broad range of industries, we can help you find coverage solutions that are appropriate to protect your valuable assets.

Marsh has many proprietary placement solutions that can help you get cover up to the full value of your assets. One of these solutions includes a market-renowned MMC facility, which can provide a limit up to US$1.25 billion for any one location. Agreement for this coverage is only required by two underwriters, which means we can often provide a quote and have coverage in place within 24 hours.