Our wine shipping partner, Domaine Wine Storage, prides themselves on timely and dependable temperature-controlled wine shipping. A critical factor to our confidence is their insistence on wine shipping insurance. Domaine Wine Storage strongly recommends that their customers purchase their own comprehensive wine-specific policy, available through our user-friendly site. Though the policy offers coverage for one year, it is frequently more cost effective for clients to purchase wine shipping insurance through insureyourwine.com than through the shipping companies’ for a single shipment.

At a low rate, Insureyourwine.com offers 100% coverage for:
- Property in transit
- Fire and theft
- Loss due to breakdown of climate control units
- Earthquake, and flood

Many insurance policies, including most homeowner’s policies, have a frustrating and tedious claims policy, along with only covering theft or fire damage. These policies dismiss what we have found to be the greatest risk factors: spoilage due to heat exposure and breakage.

Recently, a Domaine customer noticed damage to two cases of his wine after they had accidentally been dropped while unloading from a truck at his home, resulting in over $3,000 in losses. The customer documented and reported his claim to Insureyourwine.com, and was fully reimbursed for the full value of the wine within one week. Fortunately, this is a rare situation, but a good example of how a singular wine insurance policy can save a collector from substantial loss.

To view rates, please click here:
http://www.insureyourwine.com/features-rates/

ABOUT WINE SHIPPING WITH DOMAINE WINE STORAGE

With Domaine Wine Storage, customers are provided safe and dependable shipping of wine at an affordable rate. Due to the bulk of wine shipments they complete annually, they are able to offer fast, temperature-controlled wine shipping on a domestic or national level at up to 15% less than their competition. An expert in residential pick-ups and deliveries, Domaine Wine Storage takes the stress of out the wine shipping process, ultimately allowing the customer to simply enjoy their wine. Their all-inclusive approach sets them aside from the competition and above all insures the safe delivery of your wine, however complex the logistics.

To obtain a quote for your wine shipping needs, please click here:
http://www.cellaradvisors.com/wine-shipment-questionnaire

For Tony Morgan, a property underwriter specializing in earthquake coverage, the spark for his firm’s latest specialty-insurance program idea was nothing more than an interesting newspaper article that really had nothing to do with earthquakes—or even insurance.

Morgan, a senior vice president for Bliss & Glennon, a Redondo Beach, Calif.-based wholesale brokerage and managing general agent (MGA), recalls reading a few years ago a Wall Street Journal article about wine collectors—in particular, the marital squabbles that develop between husbands who collect rare vintages and wives who don’t understand why they can’t drink from the prized bottles.

The article stressed that these men spend so much money on their collections that when some marriages end in divorce (presumably not over the question of wine consumption), battles over ownership of the collection become a problem.

The need to protect such valuable property from other perils, such as fire and theft, wasn’t lost on Morgan.

“There must be an insurance angle here,” he remembers thinking. Online research into insurance offerings turned up very little—a positive development. “This is a niche nobody has explored yet,” he recalls saying to himself.

Eventually Morgan did come across a few insurers offering coverage to wine collectors, but only as part of a homeowners policy, “never on a standalone basis.” Morgan was convinced there was opportunity in the standalone niche, but he realized he didn’t have the background to know all the underwriting questions to ask. The Wall Street Journal provided help on that score, too, pointing him in the direction of Marc Lazar, a St. Louis-based appraiser of wine collections.

The two teamed up to develop online coverage available today through www.insureyourwine.com. Morgan explains that either the broker or collector can go to the website to obtain a policy covering traditional perils like fire, theft and vandalism, as well as special options like international transit coverage.

“A lot of collectors are shipping wines—buying it in Europe and sending it home,” Morgan says, explaining the popularity of the optional cover for damage or loss in transit. He says collectors storing wines in third-party warehouses, rather than their own in-house wine cellars, can also buy coverage under the program.

Infographic: Programs At A Glance

“We cover you for earthquake and flood—and also if you drop a bottle or if your high school kids invade your wine cellar while you are on vacation,” he says, noting that sublimits may apply in that case. Losses arising from the breakdown of a cooling system are also covered, he notes.

Premiums start at $250 for $30,000 of coverage, and the website allows collectors and brokers to bind coverage for values as high as $500,000. “They go online, fill out an application and get a premium. We double-check the information and then send a formal quote by e-mail,” Morgan says, explaining that Bliss & Glennon also specifically underwrites submissions for collections valued over $500,000.

Asked if there are any uninsurable risks, Morgan couldn’t think of any situation that would mean turning away a customer. The only problematic risk would be one located in a 100-year flood zone. “They’d have the coverage, but they wouldn’t have the coverage for flood,” he says.

Morgan says the program has 150 clients now—with only a few small losses. With the program recently getting more exposure, 50 customers were added in just the last two months, and he anticipates getting to 1,000 over time.

Morgan knew he had a winning concept, but carriers didn’t jump at the chance to write the coverage when he and Lazar first pitched it three years ago; the program is currently written in the London market.

Insurers “love programs, but tend to go to those already in place, where they can take them over,” Morgan says, explaining that the success rate is historically low for new programs. His wine one had the added obstacle of relatively small premiums working against carrier desires to add large volumes to their books.

“They want to be able to analyze the history,” he adds. “We had no history”—just a great idea and long-term vision.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

‘Massive implications’ of warehouse roof collapse for businesses

January 10, 2011
by Richard Woodard

Wine businesses have been left without stock to sell at the busiest time of the year as a result of the collapse of a warehouse roof at London City Bond (LCB) before Christmas.  One distributor, Source Wines, estimates that it lost up to 80% of its stock in the collapse at LCB’s facility in Purfleet, Essex, on 2 December, which is believed to have been caused by heavy snowfall.

‘It meant that we had virtually no stock to sell during the busiest month of the year,’ Nick Wolridge, national account manager for Source Wines, told Decanter.com.

‘It has massive implications. We were not able to supply our customers – independent wine merchants and restaurants – at their busiest time of the year.’

The collapse in the 100,000-case warehouse has also left Source short of the cash flow necessary to rebuild stocks as supplies come in this month from Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina.

‘The first two months of the year are the quietest and don’t have the sales throughput,’ said Wolridge.

‘We’re obviously having to discuss things with our suppliers and the producers we work with.’

He added that the company was in discussions with LCB and insurers about possible recompense for destroyed stock and lost profits. Alf Allington, managing director of LCB, said the company was ‘working hard’ with its insurers to allow customers to finalise and submit claims for lost stock.

‘To date, we have recovered more than 65% of the stock held within the warehouse, and efforts are continuing to salvage as much stock as possible,’ he added.

‘We are sorry for the inconvenience caused at a crucial time of the trading year, but our swift reaction in providing alternative bonded facilities for our customers was well-received and we have been encouraged by the general feedback from customers.’