[Nhcoll-l] Collections insurance values

[Brown, Matthew A]

Dear list,

We've recently been in discussions with the University's Risk Assessment office about their annual (?) policy update. I know that when they visited last about five years ago, we gave them a ballpark of $1-1.5k cost of replacement per specimen for our paleontological collections. In this recent conversation, they sent a section from the Fine Arts policy stating more or less that loss of "archeological" objects will only be paid out at fair market value, not cost of replacement from the field. I've let them know that as scientific collections, they don't have commercial value, and that the only way we could rebuild a similar collection is through field work. Risk Management is checking with the insurance company for clarification, and I'm asking for input from the community to find out how other institutions handle this issue. We've been round on this with customs declaration values before, but I can't think of a resource for this particular issue. 

Any advice would be appreciated. 

With thanks,


Matthew A. Brown, M.Sc.
Head of Collections, Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory
Lecturer, Department of Geological Sciences
Jackson School of Geosciences
The University of Texas at Austin
R7600, Austin, TX 78758
Office:(512)232-5515
matthewbrown at utexas.edu
jsg.utexas.edu/vpl