Georgia Taylor, Fine Arts Appraiser
Date: 2/13/2007Contact: Joan Barrett/800-690-0070
Georgia Taylor has had more than her share of tragedy and adversity and keeps on moving ahead with her life with tremendous energy. Her latest move involved transporting herself from Steamboat Springs to Scottsdale a year ago for her health and the warmth of Arizona. She also found it a practical matter to move in order to facilitate her dream job as a Fine Arts Claim Specialist with Team One Adjusting Services, LLC. Since she spends so much time getting on and off of airplanes for her work she decided to live where the weather didn’t prevent or complicate that activity. Georgia travels the country as a general adjuster to manage, investigate, negotiate and settle fine art losses on behalf of insurance companies. These claims may be in a museum, art gallery or studio, and private collections. They may involve not only art, but also collections of wine, cars, musical instruments, antiques or jewelry. Anything that people collect, is valuable or unique falls within her scope of expertise.
In 1983, Georgia founded and operated an adjusting firm in Steamboat Springs where she handled multi million losses along with supervising her staff adjusters. In 2001 she sold her adjusting firm and joined Property Loss Consulting (now known as Team One Adjusting Services, LLC) concentrating on the handling of fine arts claims. She handles these claims throughout the United States. She describes “fine art adjusting as less stressful than handling a homeowner’s claim. “ Many of her art claims involve her as an expert witness or handling subrogation claims against a responsible party.
Stress and grief is not foreign in Georgia’s life; she lost her only child to an accident on his 16th birthday involving a drunk driver. She is a two-time cancer survivor and thrives to live a healthy life style which includes good eating habits and exercise. Although she has experience many tragedies she refuses to let anything get her down. Her involvement with community affairs and sense of altruism will find Georgia seeking out ways to better enhance other lives. She was the past president for the Northwest Colorado Chapter of MADD after the loss of her son. She spent time as the Co-Chair for Visiting Nurses and Hospice building campaign to raise 1.7 million dollars to enable them to own their building in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She states, “All of us will sometime in our life interact with Hospice either through a family member, friend or perhaps ourselves.” It is a gift to know what to and what NOT to say to people who are touched by personal loss”, Georgia explains “unfortunately I belong to the club that no one wants to join, but allows me to know what to say or not say to a parent that has lost a child.”
Continuing education is extremely important to her; she attends museum conferences that touch on many topics including conservation cleaning techniques and evaluations. These conferences are generally a week or so long and go from morning to night. “In the evenings, the local museums open their galleries for the attendees to tour.” Georgia said, “It is exhausting, but it’s what I love. Even when I read for fun, it is books about art.”
She has always been an artist and has studied watercolor with national known artists such as Tom Lynch, Timothy Clark and Stephen Quiller. She has an Associate in Fine Arts and literally her entire life has studying art and art history. She mainly paints landscapes, people, animals and flowers. She was previously represented by Emily Ingram Gallery in Steamboat Springs; shown in many Colorado regional art shows and several Aspen private shows. Prices vary however many of her works sell up to thousands of dollars. Georgia was selected by Ride Snowboards as one of their 50 finalists (out of 200 artists throughout the world) in a 2004 graphic design contest. She is active in several Art Leagues and plans on obtaining representation in Arizona.
In the insurance claims arena, her awards are plentiful. She is very proud and grateful for the National Claims Professional of the Year and the Region VII Recipient of the Claims Professional of the Year award from the National Association of Insurance Women. Georgia said with a smile in her voice “the women can be tougher, demanding but supportive so it’s not an easy honor to receive” She was selected in 1998 as the first recipient of Claims Magazine as Claims Professional of the Year. She is a certified business counselor with SCORE, a non-profit organization dedicated to the success of small business people in the USA. She has served on many boards and has extensive officer and committee experience with the National Association of Independent Insurance Adjusters, Affiliated Adjusters, Inc. and the National Association of Insurance Women. Georgia is also a member of the Loss Executives Association (LEA) and a previous member of International Association of Arson Investigators.
Now that she is out of snows of Colorado, Georgia is looking forward to continuing her current regimen of good healthy food and exercise of swimming, hiking, and time at the gym. She is enthusiastic about membership in the Arizona Insurance Claims Association and looking forward to being an involved member!