Museum insurance rates jump 37%

Interest rates and inflation may be low, but the cost of protecting a museum collection is rising. When Los Angeles County Supervisors on June 3 approved a new insurance policy covering the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, they found that premiums had jumped 37% from the year before.

Also, the new policy doesn’t cover most potential losses from terrorism -- an exclusion many insurers have added since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In general, county staffers noted in their report to the supervisors, the insurance industry has “hardened” in premiums and coverage since the attacks.

The policy’s annual premium, which the museums and supervisors agreed to pay, is $336,679.69, with a deductible of $20,000, for coverage of up to $300 million per “occurrence,” which includes fire, floods, earthquakes and other perils. The two museums’ collections are together valued at more than $2.7 billion.

-- Christopher Reynolds