If you've ever thought that the ¥1,500 admission ticket at the average touring exhibition in Tokyo is too expensive, consider this: The cost of insuring artworks for trips to Japan is around 0.2 percent of their appraised value.

So, imagine a Vincent van Gogh exhibition with 20 paintings, each valued at $50 million, or ¥4 billion (many of van Gogh's works are worth more). The museum will be forking out ¥160 million to insurance companies. To cover that cost alone, it would have to sell more than 100,000 of those ¥1,500 tickets. That's more than most exhibitions in Japan achieve, and of course there are many other expenses to be met.

Now you might be thinking, "Well, if Japan followed the lead of every other country in the G8 (except Russia) and created a national indemnity system, then museums wouldn't have to pay to insure touring artworks."