We are a small community organisation without any institutional support. How can we insure our oral history collection?
A. Firstly. you can minimise the risks by keeping copies of all your interviews and associated documentation in a separate location from your originals. There are some insurers who may consider insuring archives and artefacts such as recorded interviews, and these are listed below. Inclusion here does not constitute a recommendation. Before contacting them, you need to consider how you value your archives for these purposes, e.g. how much it would cost to make new copies of them, or to restore the documents that relate to them. There is an article on this subject, Valuing Archives for Insurance by Lieselotte Clark, in Business Archives Principles and Practice, No.75 (May 1998). Hiscox Insurance: 25 London Road, Sittingbourne, Kent, ME10 1PE; tel. 0870 084 3777 (8am – 6pm Monday to Friday); email customerservices@hiscox.com; or request a quote at http://www.hiscox.com/. Stamp Insurance Services, CGI Services Ltd, 29 Bowhay Lane, Exeter EX4 1PE, 01392 433949. Contributor: Cynthia BrownCa
