With a desire to put his awards on display, a Hollywood film legend hired a contractor to install beautifulone-inch thick glass shelves on the bathroom wall of his Upper EastSide Manhattan home. The thespian promptly filled the shelves withall of his various acting awards, including an Oscar, a BAMBI, andmultiple BAFTAs (the international equivalent of the Oscar fromGermany and Great Britain, respectively), among others.Unfortunately, the weight of the awards pulled the mounting screwsfrom the walls. The top shelf crashed down, taking out three lowershelves and leaving 25 awards in various states of ruin amid a pileof broken glass.

Case Background

Contents claims experts were tasked on behalf of the insurancecarrier with assisting the policyholder in any way possible. Thecontents team inspected the awards and prepared detailed conditionreports denoting damages and identifying materials of construction.Specialists determined which awards were restorable and which werebeyond repair. The contents team tapped into its network of artand object conservation specialists, identifying three differentconservators with expertise in the specific materials used in theconstruction of the awards which were then sent to them forevaluation.

To replace the total loss awards, contents experts reached outto the awarding agencies, bridging both language barriers and timezone differences in order to contact the internationalorganizations. Stringent documentation was needed to legitimize theinquiry and prove that the expert contents team was indeed actingon the behalf of the Hollywood film legend and multiple-awardrecipient.

To see what happened, click next!The Result

The restorable awards were returned to the insured without theslightest evidence of damage from the fall. For the awards thatsuffered total loss, contents specialists identified the variousaward manufacturers and coordinated efforts on three differentcontinents to secure exact replacements of the total lossawards.