You will find that insuring your violin will be a challenge. If you have a violin of value you may think that your household insurance policy will cover the loss of your violin. You may think that your agent will make sure that it goes through if a problem arises due to fire, theft or damage to your violin. I may be wrong in individual cases but I strongly suggest that you confirm with your insurer that your violin is included in your insurance coverage. Insurance companies are very shy to cover violins because the violins are so fragile and so hard to value and that they are extremely vulnerable to fraudulent claims. The best way I can think of to demonstrate this is to break it down into the 5 Ws of reporting.

So the first question is who? Most people who want to insure a violin make some money from their instrument. You play concerts or on the street corner or in a band. You may have a collection of value and make money buying and selling violins. Or you may have just inherited a valuable violin…but then if you play or collect,you will probably want to sell it. No matter what, people have the ambition to make lots of money from violins and tend to greatly overvalue them. This is a conundrum for the insurance companies that they wish to avoid if at all possible.

What do you want to insure your violin against? Theft and fire are pretty straight forward. Larceny and arson can be arranged if one is motivated enough to try to defraud the insurance company. Then the value of a violin can be destroyed by the formation of cracks caused by lack of maintenance or abuse. The scenarios for unjustified at the least and fraudulent claims at the worst is endless. Hence, insurance companies will only take on violins on a special risk policy.

This partly addresses the “when” question. One special risk policy in particular is for shipping violins. We have shipped several violins with great success. I always insure the violins if I can. It is difficult to state a policy because if shippers will sell you insurance, the rules are always changing. Every time I sell a violin, the first thing I check is what the latest shipping insurance restriction may be.

Where violins are in danger of loss is also of concern to insurers. They are easy to steal from your home, your car or at the hall where you play. Some will disappear from a church. How can it be covered under your home owner’s policy when it is so vulnerable to loss in so many other places?

Why are violins so hard to insure? The answer is that their value is very subjective and vulnerable to fraud. You can hire a qualified luthiery to appraise them but the luthiery might have a questionable reputation. Most luthieries are not that keen on this kind of work as the customer is torn by the desire to have a high valuation for replacement but want a low valuation to keep premiums down. The insurer has to deal with the same problem. People always think any antique violin is worth tens to hundreds of thousands or even millions...but they don’t want to pay the premiums.