Anyone who happened to view our live stats this February may have noticed that our Insurance Program surpassed 15,000 bound policies. This is a huge leap from when the program began to offer property and casualty options in 2007. At the time, Fractured Atlas was in many ways steering into uncharted waters. While a handful of intrepid brokers and carriers were providing insurance programs, most options were tailored for established arts companies and organizations with substantial budgets. Even though artists needed insurance policies to fulfill contracts, pursue grants, and cover their own equipment and artwork, there wasn’t really an accessible insurance option for the broader artistic community.
The limited insurance options for artists were significantly due to the underlying concept of the “law of large numbers,” where the larger a sample size you have, the more accurate your predictions can be about the larger population it represents. For insurance, this is specifically important, since the larger a sample is, the better an underwriter can predict the risk of a population to have certain losses. So if an individual artist or arts organization were to approach an insurance company, the insurer might not have the context to understand the correct risk and exposure. Without any clear understanding of the risks inherent in completing an artistic endeavor, insurance carriers might either avoid providing any coverage or offer quotes with inordinately high premiums compared to the budget of the projects.
Since Fractured Atlas’ primary mission is to break down barriers to artistic expression, we saw a clear opportunity to leverage our reach and technological resources. Through our exclusive partnership with the Arts Insurance Program at the insurance agency Maury, Donnelly, and Parr, we created the most comprehensive online platform possible so that artists nationwide could have access to insurance.
Now with the over 15,000 policies purchased through our program, we can better show insurers that the arts at all levels and across disciplines are worth the risk.
As artists continue to obtain insurance through Fractured Atlas, a portrait of our members’ combined risk has developed. From the sample of all of our policies combined, the ratio of claims paid out to the total premium collected is shockingly low, and in line with what you would expect from responsible businesses that take the safety of their staff, their customers, and their venues very seriously.
We look forward to building off of our now-established base to make sure more artists can create without restraint. While we aim for the insurance industry to better understand artists to achieve this end, we also strive to give artists a better understanding of the insurance industry. Just as the artistic community may wrongly be viewed as too eccentric to properly manage their risks, the insurance industry has gained a reputation for capitalizing on the misfortune of others for monetary gain. However, the base of insurance has always been a social contract of the many to protect the unfortunate few who suffer losses. As a non-profit service organization, our goal is to build upon the altruistic core of insurance. We remain committed to ensuring (and insuring) the protection and expansion of artistic expression.
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