BusinessReport.com

Say you’re an insured homeowner and you’ve filed a claim to replace a stolen television. After paperwork, phone calls and the likely headaches, you finally replace your television. But what if you’re the keeper of former Gov. Huey Long’s green silk pajamas? How do you insure those?

Debra Landry of Perkins-McKenzie Insurance is the agent for the Foundation for Historical Louisiana, which operates the Old Governor’s Mansion, home to those pajamas and a slew of other gubernatorial memorabilia.

Initially, she asks what the catastrophic loss number would be if the building and its contents burned to the ground. Then the agent underwrites back into that number while assessing the value of what’s being insured. For instance, are there $100,000 worth of $500 items? Or are there $100,000 worth of items and one is $75,000? Without having to list every piece and its value, this blanket coverage helps the museum cover all of its contents without the danger of something falling through the cracks.

Then you have to decide what risks you’re going to cover. To get the broadest coverage available, Landry goes for all-risk, which includes theft, instead of just getting fire, wind and hail. Next up is the deductible: How large of a deductible can the museum absorb? Would a higher deductible and smaller premium work? Or vice versa? Finally it’s exposure time, studying the building’s construction and location as well as placement of memorabilia, fire alarms, security systems and sprinklers.

Aside from insuring the invaluable items, Landry works with the Foundation for other coverage areas like general liability, worker’s compensation, professional liability, automobile insurance⎯anything the Foundation may need on or off-premise. The mansion itself belongs to the state, so that’s out of her domain except for any improvements.

Having been with Perkins-McKenzie for 27 years, Landry has delved into various areas of insurance and has been involved in commercial and specialty insurance for two decades. A history buff, she calls the Foundation’s account a “fun account.”

“It’s fulfilling, and it’s always interesting,” she says.

How the Old Governor’s Mansion handles its insurance is by no means a blueprint for any other museum. At the West Baton Rouge Museum in Port Allen, there’s a similar setup with different intricacies. There, the West Baton Rouge Historical Association owns its collection and insures it while museum officials exhibit, interpret and administer the collection.

Julie Rose, director of the West Baton Rouge Museum, says each museum is going to employ a unique insurance strategy.

“I can’t imagine a generic one,” she says. “There are so many different kinds of collections and storage.”

The collections at the West Baton Rouge Museum are classified according to where they are located, who uses them and their ability to be replaced. The 5,644-object permanent collection includes the 1861 silk flag/banner that belonged to the Confederate Infantry Company called the “Delta Rifles” of West Baton Rouge. Items like this sort of irreplaceable artifact are insured through Huntington T. Block, a fine arts underwriter.

The museum’s noncirculating library used for research insures its roughly 970 contents as equipment, including photographs, maps, books and the like. The same goes for the education collection, which has about 1,300 items like toy and game reproductions that are used in schools and educational programs.

West Baton Rouge Museum

PROTECTING THE FLAG: The first piece of the West Baton Rouge Museum’s collection, insured by Huntington T. Block, is its 1861 silk flag/banner that belonged to the ‘Delta Rifles,’ which was presented to the Confederate Infantry Company at the Rail Road Depot to a Capt. Favrot.

A museum, however, covers its assets, and now more than ever there is an emphasis on disaster preparedness and recovery. After Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Museum of Art became an example of what insurance underwriters are asking of and providing for museums. Though the museum’s collection was safe, one sculpture in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden was harmed, with the museum sustaining more than $6 million in damage.

In his column in the museum’s Arts Quarterly publication, director E. John Bullard mentions the two-month security forces employed by AXA Art Insurance Corp., the museum’s insurer. Granted not every insurer may go that far, but the lessons learned from Katrina have museum administrators and their insurance agents planning ahead.

Genny Nadler Thomas, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Museums, says the organization has held numerous workshops on these issues, discussing matters like moving exhibits to second floors to reduce risk exposure or planning for added security during power outages.

“It’s almost like a medical situation,” she says. “You have to respond very quickly or you’ll lose it.”