On the evening of April 15, 2019, notre dame cathedral, which has a history of more than 800 years, was hit by a fire that once ran out of control and engulfed the roof of the church and the iconic spire. At present, the loss of the fire can not be estimated, while sighing, it should be more sobering, how should the field of cultural relics and artworks prevent and deal with risks?
Market demand is becoming increasingly prominent
This year's Lantern Festival, the "Shangyuan Night" lantern festival held by the Forbidden City once brushed up the circle of friends, which is the first time that the ancient building complex of the Forbidden City has been lit up on a larger scale at night. Because of this, more than 3,000 tickets for this event were "secondless" as soon as they were launched, and behind the heat is the organic combination of cultural display, cultural relics protection and risk prevention.
Shan Jixiang, then president of the Palace Museum, once wrote that in recent years, the Palace Museum has adopted a variety of ways to prevent risks, on the one hand, through the construction of a strong security system for risk management, on the other hand, to handle insurance for cultural relics collections.
On March 23, representatives of China and Italy exchanged certificates on the return of 796 pieces (sets) of lost Cultural Relics in China. This is the largest repatriation of Chinese lost overseas cultural relics in nearly 20 years.
How to safely transport these cultural relics and artworks "home" tests the wisdom of all parties. According to reports, as the only insurance supplier in the transportation process, Huatai Property & Casualty Insurance has formulated a comprehensive and professional insurance plan to underwrite the return trip and escort the cultural relics "home".
Data show that in 2017, the total turnover of the global art market was 63.7 billion US dollars, and China's art market accounted for 21% of it. Industry insiders said that the art market is growing and developing, its risk protection needs will also become increasingly prominent, in this context, the active development of insurance products supporting the art market is the general trend.
As an insurance with natural prevention and protection against risks, can it cover all the risks faced by all kinds of cultural relics and artworks?
Zhu Jixiang, underwriter of fire insurance in the underwriting department of Huatai Property & Casualty Insurance, said that the scope of liability of art insurance generally includes the coverage of property insurance and transportation insurance, which can cover the risk of static display and storage of works of art, and can also cover the dynamic risk of works of art in the process of transportation, exhibition and dismantling. The types of art insurance developed by domestic insurance companies can generally be divided into two types of insurance, namely comprehensive insurance that lists insurance liabilities and all insurance with a wider coverage.
According to reports, Huatai Property & Casualty Insurance has participated in the underwriting of art insurance since 1999, and is the earliest insurance company in China to carry out art insurance business. In 2015, Huatai Property & Casualty developed and filed art insurance types for different types of customers in the art industry, including museum art insurance clauses, auction house art insurance clauses, gallery art insurance clauses, private or corporate collection art insurance clauses, art exhibition insurance clauses and jewelry insurance clauses, all of which are all risky clauses. The scope of liability for losses caused by risks other than those excluding liability specified in the underwriting clauses of all such insurance clauses is much larger than that of the general comprehensive art insurance clauses, and the risks of fire, rainstorm, flood, collision damage and so on are covered.
The art evaluation puzzle remains to be solved
However, compared with the booming art market, China is obviously weak in providing insurance protection services for cultural relics and artworks. Compared with some developed countries and regions, the current insurance rate of cultural relics insurance in China is still too low. Whether it is system improvement or market awareness, it is still in its infancy.
As an ancient civilization with a long history, China is a big country with cultural relics and artworks. According to the data, the Palace Museum alone has a huge collection of cultural relics, and a total of more than 1.8 million cultural relics have been cleaned up, of which there are nearly 10,000 national first-class cultural relics collections. Shan Jixiang once pointed out that if all the cultural relics collection is insured, the complexity of the underwriting work and the huge investment in the premium will be unimaginable and unbearable.
It is even more difficult to underwrite damages for historical and cultural heritage such as the Palace Museum. Zhu Ji explained: "If you do not consider the added value such as historical value and academic value, you can only insure according to the replacement value and underwrite it according to the indefinite value, and domestic insurance companies can generally underwrite it." Compensation is available in the event of a risk covered by the policy, such as fire, earthquake, or flood. However, if it is necessary to apply for insurance in accordance with the way of fixed-value insurance, it will involve a more complex value determination link, which needs to prove the rationality of value determination and needs to comply with the principle of insurance loss compensation. At present, there are still some difficulties in dealing with such forms of insurance in China. ”
Swiss Re also said that masterpieces of architecture such as Notre Dame cathedral are usually not covered because art is priceless.
"At present, insurance companies lack the ability to evaluate and identify the value of art, which is the core issue that directly constrains the development of the domestic art insurance market." Zhu Ji said, "In fact, not only the art insurance market, but also the entire domestic art industry lacks a mature and perfect art value appraisal and appraisal system. ”
In this regard, he also suggested that professional art value appraisal and appraisal institutions should be developed, especially third-party appraisal agencies. At the same time, professional talents should also be cultivated. Art insurance involves appraisal, valuation, disaster prevention and loss prevention and other links, with a high degree of professionalism, which puts forward higher requirements for the construction of talent teams. "But these two things cannot be achieved overnight, and it requires the entire industry to work together." Zhu Ji said.