NEA Expands Indemnity Program

The National Endowment for the Arts is expanding the 30-year-old Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program, so that in the future it will cover domestic as well as international loans, the NEA announced. The program spares museums the cost of privately insuring against loss of or damage to art that they borrow, by extending indemnity agreements backed by the U.S. Treasury. In the past, the program has only applied to international loans of art. Now, art borrowed from American collections will also be eligible.

At any one time, the program can offer a maximum of $5 billion of coverage for works from international collections, and $5 billion of coverage for works from domestic collections. Museums must apply for coverage for specific exhibitions and loans; the next deadline is September 8. A spokeswoman for the NEA, Victoria Hutter, said that since the program started, in 1975, there has only been one claim.