\u201cThe state acts as its own insurer when national museums\u2019 works are in their typical place of conservation,\u201d a spokesperson said, in a statement first reported by Le Parisien newspaper, adding that this took into account the high cost of insurance \u201cwhen the claims rate is low\u201d.<\/p>\n
While liability for works in the national collection generally sits with the state, museums do purchase insurance cover when moving objects or lending objects to one another.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/6cbb5119-6cac-4389-a779-fb79ff9f64f1.jpg\")
A crown worn by Empress Eugenie, which was dropped by thieves during their escape \u00a9 Louvre Museum\/Reuters<\/p>\n
The insurance value is \u201cvery often higher than the value of acquiring the work\u201d, the ministry added.<\/p>\n
Private galleries such as the Louis Vuitton Foundation and Pinault Collection, by contrast, would typically buy commercial insurance cover.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor an institution like the Louvre, it\u2019s almost impossible to insure your entire collection,\u201d said Charlie Horrell, head of fine art at insurance broker Marsh.<\/p>\n
Fine art coverage within London\u2019s speciality insurance market, which covers much of the world\u2019s most complex risk, totals about $4bn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Louvre\u2019s collection alone would overwhelm the market, multiple insurance market figures said, with treasures ranging from Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s \u201cMona Lisa\u201d to the \u201cGreat Sphinx of Tanis\u201d being almost impossible to value or appraise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
While France hopes to recover the jewellery, there is a risk that the thieves will seek to dismantle the objects and sell off the many precious stones they contain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Similarly, the bulk of liability for Notre-Dame, the medieval cathedral that burned in 2019, sat with the French government, according to Grace Best-Devereux, a complex loss adjuster for claims management company Sedgwick, although some private contractors would take out commercial insurance cover when working on the monument. <\/p>\n
However, private donations of about \u20ac840mn from 340,000 donors covered the cost of Notre-Dame\u2019s renovation, preventing large costs being borne by the taxpayer.<\/p>\n
The heist at the Louvre is just the most recent in a string of museum thefts, with several involving gold. On Monday, French prosecutors said they had begun investigation proceedings against a Chinese woman on October 13 over the theft of 6kg of gold nuggets from the Natural History Museum of Paris last month.<\/p>\n
The items came from gold discoveries in Bolivia, California, the Urals and Australia but the suspect was found with 1kg of melted down gold in Barcelona, after an international arrest warrant was issued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the National Museum of Wales in the UK reported that Bronze Age gold jewellery had disappeared in an apparent heist, and gold was stolen earlier this year from the Netherlands\u2019 Drents museum.<\/p>\n
Gold and silver prices have soared in recent months, with gold bullion up more than 50 per cent this year.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The high cost of metals may have helped incentivise the thefts, Best-Devereux said. Since gemstones would probably be re-cut before being sold on the black market, she added, the value of melted-down metals could potentially exceed that of precious gems cut from the stolen objects.<\/p>\n
Best-Devereux expects insurers to demand more information in future from museums seeking to loan works to French collections, including about security measures in place and where in the museum the works would be displayed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s going to be more attention on loan agreements,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-215720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}