Shipping and Insuring Paintings?

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

This is the first time I've had a client who doesn't live within driving distance for delivery of a painting, so I've been researching shipping options. I know this had been mentioned elsewhere on the forum but those posts don't really answer my question.

For a local professional (albeit generic - i.e. non-art) mailing service, here are their prices to ship a 20x24" canvas that's framed:

Packaging $52.06 (includes material, labor, and tax)
Shipping 30.99
Insurance 18.81
Signature 4.99
Total 106.85

The insurance carrier for the professional mailing service wants to make sure that the painting is wrapped very well and is completely protected, since I want to insure it for its full value.

I had stipulated that the client would pay shipping costs, but he's not happy with this price and asked me to see whether there were any other options. I had originally thought that I could send the painting myself in the package that the frame came in, but I couldn't insure it for anywhere near its worth that way.

I don't do enough long-distance commissions to make it worth my while to buy special insurance to cover shipping on my own but I want to make certain that it gets there in one piece, and that I'm covered if it doesn't.

What do you all do about this?

[Michele Rushworth]

That price seems about right. Tell your client it's worth it.

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Michele, he just agreed to it. I think you're absolutely right, and who wants to get into the business of making boxes, anyway?

I just sent him a reply:

<<I think that's really the best idea. The portrait's not cheap and we would both be truly sick if something happened to it. On the painters' list I mentioned, someone recently told a story of a portrait artist who commanded a great deal of money and who shipped a posthumous portrait of a cardiologist some distance to have it ready for an unveiling at a special event honoring the physician. The shipping was delayed and it only arrived hours before the presentation. The artist was horrified to see that the package had been damaged and there was a rip in the canvas right through the subject's heart area. Luckily he'd brought his paint supplies with him and was able to do a temporary fix for the presentation, and also luckily the package was insured to the full value, but he still had to go home afterwards and repaint the whole thing on a new canvas because his repair, of course, wouldn't have held up.>>

I'm sure that will reassure him about the wisdom of his decision. And thanks for confirming my suspicion that this price is about as good as it's going to get!

Leslie