Insuring Your Art Collection
Kate Downes • 7 June 2025
Protecting your artworks at home or in storage with Ultimart
The love of art lasts a lifetime; the artworks you own should last even longer.
Investing in an artwork means investing in something you will enjoy for years to come. You might intend to leave the artwork to a family member, or perhaps sell it if the market is in your favour, as artwork is one of the few insurable assets that is likely to keep – and perhaps increase – in value over the time period you own it.
Securing appropriate insurance for your artwork is therefore one of the most important ways of taking care of your art collection. To help our clients find the cover they need, Watson Gallery is delighted to be partnering with Ultimart, a specialist art insurer with policies designed to benefit art owners and collectors.
Ultimart’s policies are tailored to meet the needs of an active art collector, including the requirements of shipping and handling fragile artworks, as well as any accidental damage occurring while an artwork is in storage or bring reframed. The policies on offer also allow for the fact that an artwork’s value can change, with appreciation in artwork value covered by up to 200%, and protections in place if the value for an artwork goes down.
Ultimart offers:
- One-on-one personal service
- Cover up to £100,000 on any one artwork
- All risks cover
- No security prerequisites
- Artwork appreciation cover
- Worldwide cover
- No excess charges on claims
- Cover for new additions
- Restoration and repair cover
All Watson clients resident in the UK will be able to sign up for 30 days cover, free of charge, at the point of purchase. This simple sign up process can be completed at the gallery with help from the sales team, or in your own time at home.
There are additional plans available for all Watson clients, including Portfolio cover if you want to obtain wider insurance for your entire art collection.
Get in contact
with the gallery team to find out more about available insurance services.
Our tips on using your artworks to represent what makes you unique, in your home or at your workplace
"This photograph is personal. Scotland is my home and I think we did Glencoe proud."
One of our favourite ways to look back on the year past is through our installation photos. These are the times we get to see what our artists’ work looks like when it reaches the homes or workplaces of our clients – for us, that’s really what it’s all about.
Each work has its own narrative, in which Jane highlights the details and themes of the piece. In 'Masters of Skullduggery,' Jane reimagines the infamous Burke and Hare as two hares surrounded by skulls and corpse lights as evidence of their misdeeds… “Oh, these two are really bad boys… William Hare and William Burke, show committed a series of murders in 1828. They sold the corpses to Dr. Robert Knox for dissection in his lectures in anatomy. To make things more nefarious, when captured Hare turned King’s evidence against Burke and Burke was hanged. His body was donated to the anatomy class; it can still be seen today. Hare disappeared. A fitting story for dark Scottish nights…”
A look back at some of our favourite artwork installations from Watson clients' homes, and our take on what made the artworks work so well in each space...
When the time comes to say goodbye to a precious artwork, whether to bring something new into your collection or to free up some cash, it’s important to find the right sales option. With so many art collectors now looking for their next piece online, EzelDotz’s web-based sales platform allows artworks to be discovered by collectors seeking works by their favourite collectable artists. EzelDotz also has a database of over 15,000 collectors to whom they will market new works, or help in their search for a particular artist’s work. They have recently been working on a brand new sales platform and will be relaunching soon! Watson has been working with EzelDotz for a number of years as a resale partner (previously under the name 'Sell My Artworks'.) We have even had the opportunity to display artworks owned by local Edinburgh clients at the gallery, by request of our own collectors. If you are looking to move on any works in your own art collection, visit EzelDotz to see how they can assist you as their new sales platform gets underway.
Kirsten Mirrey's first solo show had some incredible results...!
Local street artist Sleek’s Edinburgh workspace is located in the Queen Street Art Studio below Watson Gallery, and we enjoyed co-hosting his live painting demonstration… in keeping with his street art roots, he decided to work outside!