Global CEO, Axa Art Insurance
WHITEWALL: Axa Art is one of the premier art insurance companies in the world. What is the most challenging thing about insuring art?
DR. ULRICH GUNTRAM: The most challenging thing is to protect our balance sheet, because we are a relatively small company. We only insure art collectibles, but we do that worldwide, and for the entire art world. If we make one or two mistakes in our risk assessment, we put ourselves and our parent company at stake. We have to come each and every morning aware of the exposure we are responsible for.
UG: Hurricane Katrina was probably from the claims side the biggest challenge we ever had. Our exposure was close to $400 million. We were responsible for the New Orleans Museum, several art dealers in the French quarter, and a couple of art collectors. We were less concerned about the hurricane impact, as we were for the flood that came after it, the hundred degree temperatures, and the black mold rising on the wall in a day. Our four person team from New York managed this crisis day and night in a marvelous manner. After three days we had energy back in the museum, and it was fully protected with armed forces. Because of this, we became a central hub for endangered artworks that were not insured by us. There was then a big logistic effort to fly them out to conservation centers all over the U.S., where they are probably still sitting today. But the effect of all this effort was that the initial exposure $400 million came down to a claim of 10-12 million. It was not only the material value, but what we protected in terms of cultural goods that was important.
WW: In this country, insurance values are used as tax appraisals. Have you seen any shift in your business since the financial meltdown?
UG: We haven't seen a major shift in our business yet. Now that the art market coming down, is not immediately affecting us. We observe that people are becoming more aware of security, becoming more sensitive about values, putting values into a more reasonable perspective. The obsessive values for single items is in the triple digit millions are coming down. I’m not upset about recent developments if it stays like this, if it crashes then it’s a different situation. But I consider this downturn as prices coming back to normal levels. We have been in business for 44 years, so we have a long term perspective on things.
