According to Street.com as the art market has grown in size, scope and value, insurers have stepped in to take advantage of the growing market as well. Major insurers now cover an array of valuables including paintings, sculpture, jewelry, antiques, stamps, coins and fine wine.

"There's a limited number of cars and homes out there, so insurance companies are creating specific products for very specific needs," says Jeanne Salvatore, spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute.

The niche-insurance market is growing quickly, according to Salvatore, especially for fine art. As an example, AIG's AIG fine-arts division has had a "very healthy" annual growth rate of about 30% in recent years, says Katja Zigerlig, director of fine arts at the insurer's private-client group.

Here are some tips insurers offer to keep your prized possessions in top shape:

Know the people you let into your home.

When things go missing, it's usually an inside job, according to insurers. Whether housekeepers, roof contractors or party guests, those who steal your stuff have usually been in the home before and know where to find the goods. Keep your valuables locked up if you're having major renovations or a party with unfamiliar guests. Make sure to do background checks on hired help who will be spending a good amount of time in your home.

Get the right kind of anti-theft system.

It might sound too "James Bond" to be true, but there are laser security devices and tiny locator tags developed just to prevent theft and discover where your valuables end up if they get stolen.

Make sure housekeepers know how -- and whether -- to clean your valuables.

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Creative energy … McEnroe responds to the umpire in his championship days at Wimbledon.
Photo: AFP

John Patrick McEnroe, one of the most brilliant, bad-tempered sportsmen of all time, is in London to commentate on the Wimbledon tennis tournament for the BBC.

But he has something else on his mind. On July 1 he is selling at Sotheby's a rarely seen portrait by Andy Warhol of him with his first wife, the actress Tatum O'Neal. The proceeds, which could be as much as £350,000 ($722,000), are going to charity. Not a lot of people are aware

that the man once known as "superbrat" has a serious interest in art and an impressive collection.

"It all started in the late '70s," McEnroe tells me. "My parents never went to galleries, so it was a bit like the left side of my brain wasn't there."

During the French championships in 1977 his mixed-doubles partner, Mary Carillo, took him to see Claude Monet's Water Lilies paintings at the Jeu de Paume. "I didn't know a Matisse from a Michelangelo, but when I got up close I thought, 'That is incredible.' But it was really my friend Vitas Gerulaitis who got me looking. He was four years older than me, someone I looked up to."

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We receive many emails and calls from people explaining that they want to use a Verdult painting for collateral but they are having problems.

Once we ask some basic questions, we find out the problem. Most people seeking to use their art for collateral for whatever reason fail to do their home work and are not knowledgeable about the asset that they do have. This lack of knowledge severely reduces the chances of receiving any sort of serious consideration in using their art for collateral.

Why? Most assume that art is like other major asset classes, stocks, bonds, real estate, and cash and that its value is fully transparent. In other words, though art is swiftly moving toward total acceptance and there have been many studies on this point, art is not there yet. Art by Rembrandt, Picasso, and Warhol are virtually transparent and easily tradable, most art is not.

What should you do if you want to use Verdult art as collateral? Take these steps.

1) Make sure you have the proper basic documents.

Documents include the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) and Bill of Sale or Certificate of Provenance.

2) Make sure that you have a bio of Verdult.

There are all kind of people, and arm chair quarter backs who know very little about Verdult, or what they do know is not accurate. So an Official Bio (either a short bio or extended bio) gives you a ready reference to prove and support your position that Verdult art work is world class and worthy of use as collateral.

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According to Chinnael News Asia here is still room for Chinese contemporary art works to appreciate in value, said art experts at a Channel NewsAsia symposium on "Investing in Chinese Contemporary Art".

The trick, however, is knowing what and how to buy.

For example, an art piece by one of China's top contemporary artists Fang Lijun may be 200 times more valuable than 10 years ago.

To shed some light on the prospects and know-how of investing in Chinese contemporary art, this Channel NewsAsia symposium brought under one roof art experts from Beijing Poly International Auction House, artist Fang LiJun and an avid art collector to share their views.

The avid collector Dr Arthur Lim said he started collecting art some four decades ago, when he spent just thousands buying up the pieces.

But now he's offered up to half a million dollars for those pieces!

So he is convinced that the investment value of art surpasses those of equities and real estate.

Dr Lim said: "Three, four years ago, when the price of art, especially Chinese art began to move up, I found that pieces, some of which were lost under the table, to my surprise were worth hundreds of thousands, and half a million dollars! So art values have appreciated.

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