The jewels that were stolen at the Louvre Museum in Paris at the weekend were valued at around €88 million, but France won’t recover any money as the items were not insured.
The theft left the Louvre with a huge loss and no monetary compensation.
The French Culture Ministry made it public that the robbed jewels were not privately insured. In a statement, the ministry said that the state would not be reimbursed for losing items that possess “inestimable heritage and historical value.”
The ministry explained to Le Parisien newspaper that the state functions as a self-insurer when valuable works are left in their usual places within national museums. They argued the expense of purchasing private insurance is too high when the cost of loss through theft is usually very low.
Private art galleries tend to purchase insurance to guard against loss of their collections. National museums in France do not work the same way. They self-insure, meaning they bear the risk of losing items to fire or theft themselves instead of paying an insurance company to guard against it.
Romain Dechelette, boss of a French insurer, said in an interview with Le Parisien that “they are left with nothing but tears” when such a theft occurs in a national museum. The government and the museum have to just learn to live with the loss without any financial compensation.