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Contents Claims Solved: The Case of the Damaged Sioux Warrior

What do you do when an insured is claiming $100,000 to replace a sculpture? Call a claims specialist in to assess the damages.

By Tom Kirkpatrick | Updated on February 23, 2011
Sioux WarriorWho do you call when you have a damaged life-size bronze sculpture of a 19th century Sioux warrior? Contents-claims specialists, of course! A carrier dispatched specialists to do an on-site inspection of the Sioux warrior statue that was broken during a complicated (and unsuccessful) attempt at moving the artwork. The insured was claiming $100,000 to replace the sculpture. 

The team was asked to provide its own analysis of the replacement cost for the statue and to formulate a salvage strategy. The carrier also wanted to know if it would be possible to restore the damaged sculpture.  

Case Background 

When contents experts arrived on the scene, the art specialist immediately recognized the harmed work to be the creation of a noted living artist. The team also noticed the good condition of the statue and photographed every inch to document a surprising lack of damage to the bronze. What they did find was several segments of the statue’s integral stone pedestal had been broken, with no harm to the bronze itself. Respecting the implications of VARA (the Visual Artist’s Right Act), our specialists located the artist at his studio to discuss the damage and received his agreement that his work’s artistic integrity would not be impacted by recrafting the stone base. 

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