Home Artwork Appraisal

First post so be gentle! We are in the process of renewing our Home insurance. We have a couple of paintings that we would like to get valued to ensure we are sufficiently covered. Hoping someone may have some recommendations on someone who would do this (for a reasonable price, they're not Monets!). Or lacking that, some advice on how best to go about get the paintings valued. Thanks.

What are you insuring them against?

Fire - remote.

Theft - remote. In general, thieves don't rob paintings as they are identifiable and there is very little demand.

If you do want to insure them, then you can get an idea of their value from what you paid for them. Any of the auction houses, such as Whyte's or DeVere's will do a valuation for insurance purposes. I presume that they would charge a few hundred euro for the purposes.

You could also sign up to artprice.com and try to value them yourselves.

But, the simplest thing to do, is to take good photos, measure the sizes, make a note of anything on the back of them e.g. gallery labels. The auction houses would probably tell you quick enough for free, if you need to insure them.

Thanks for the response, and apologies for the delay replying. So yes, it would be part of our contents insurance so primarily fire and theft. Most of the paintings were gifts (from parents) so unsure of value but I understand them to be at least 5 figure sums. I will probably take your advice about taking photos & details and inquiring at an auction house.

I assume it's then a question of weighing up the potential increase in premium against the likelihood of either fire or theft occurring.