Chris Bentley

Spear’s Review

Chris Bentley, who heads up the fine art and specie practice at AXA XL, a specialist division of AXA, joined the firm in 2012 from his previous role as a fine art underwriter at Hiscox.

The occasional weird and wonderful request brightens his day – he was once asked to insure a painting made partly from spiders’ silk. Bentley’s service stretches far beyond securing premiums for clients, as the firm takes pride in ‘providing expert advice on all aspects of managing a collection, including loss prevention, mitigation and conservation’.

A recent trend in the highly competitive art insurance market has brought prices down, prompting the insurer to develop a new product to cover lower-priced pieces.