The art of risk management: the crucial role of the global art insurance industry in enabling risk and security

Abstract

This article investigates the under-researched sphere of insurance. It uses empirical research data to focus on one case study, the London art world, to analyse how the global art insurance industry ‘does’ security and how it enables risk and security to be embraced. Examining how the industry plays a crucial role in the security of art and within the art world itself, the article argues that the global art insurance industry’s role is largely beneficial for the art world because by enabling risk to be embraced through insurance, its pre-crime and post-crime responses, and its influence ‘beyond’ insurance, it emboldens and fuels the dynamic, thriving global art world.

Keywords:

• risk
• insurance
• art crime
• embracing risk
• security
• policing

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Professor Greer and Professor McLaughlin for all their advice and assistance during the research. Thank you also to the referee(s) for their very useful comments.

Notes

1. Appendix 60 of the Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport (2000) described Market Overt as, ‘a medieval law that enabled a buyer to obtain good title to a stolen object by purchasing it in certain street markets, such as the one at Bermondsey. A Private Members’ Bill was introduced in the 1994 Parliamentary Session and resulted in the Sale of Goods (Amendment) Act 1994, which abolished market overt from 3 January 1995’.