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Don't know about wisdom, but some thoughts from our experience

we mostly build our own exhibits ( but buy in a few), and effectively as a government agency our day to day insurance of our assets
isn't covered in the way an autonomous institution or organisation is.. however

I'd expect coverage for both bought and made exhibits would be covered.. the major difference
will be in HOW you establish an agreed value.  If you've bought it for 60K it's initial book value is 60K

if you put 10K of materials and 12 months of staff time into the development and prototyping of an exhibit what's is book value?
and how do you get that value agreed with the insurance company.

Also how to you handle the impact of depreciation or wear and tear ( relates to both bought and built) on the exhibit values. Some very simple exhibits can have a 
life expectancy of 20 years, while others may be worn-out in a year.

We have a very ( painfully??) thorough exhibit costing system, that tracks all labour, parts, corperate overheads, and even value of floor space the development team and workshop
take up.  Means we have very clear info about the value ( or at least cost) of the exhibits.

the valuation of our exhibits is also sometimes reviewed by members of similar institutions, as standard valuers just don't have a framework to assess interactive exhibits.


We also have developed over the last year or so a simple tool to track the condition ( value and useful life) of our exhibitions ( it is more than just a financial depreciation schedule - but tries to capture
if functional condition, relevance, maintenance needs, strategic value, and for travelling exhibitions its demand. This is very similar to 
a Building condition index (BCI) which is often used to help manage the scheduling of major building maintenance, and refurbishment ( and help communicate with the financially minded the cost benefit of funding those works).  Our ECI ( exhibition condition index) was developed to help track, and give us simple tools to help make choices about, disposal of exhibitions, investment in refurbishment, or rebuild).

Insurance of our exhibits while they travel is more straight forward and is part of the freight contracts, but again rests on agreed values for the exhibits.


hope that's of some use.

Dr Stuart Kohlhagen
Manager Research and Development
Questacon
The National Science and Technology centre
Canberra
Australia


ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

For anybody who has wisdom in this area, we have both purchased exhibits
and made our own interactive exhibits at our science center.  The
question was brought up recently:  Do we need a different type of
insurance rider for our homemade exhibits vs. purchased exhibits?  I had
never thought to ask this question.  For those of you out there who make
your own exhibits, does your regular insurance policy cover those?

Any input is appreciated, as always.

--Jeff--

 

Jeff Rosenblatt

Director of Science City

Union Station

ph:  816-460-2218

email:  [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> 

 

 


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For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.

Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.

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