What happened to the French crowned jewels?

What happened to the French crowned jewels? 

The greatest value in stolen priceless art could be in giving it back. 

Everyone's talking about two possibilities: 

1️⃣ Melting down the metals, cutting down the stones, and selling them for parts (likely), or

2️⃣ Selling the pieces whole to a private collector (unlikely)

But what about ransom?

Insurance companies don't insist on takin the moral high ground. They would pay up to the maximum covered amount just to get the piece back to safety. 

If that means paying Bucket Truck Brigade millions of dollars, so be it.

But here’s the plot twist: the crowned jewels weren’t insured. Nothing in the Louvre’s collection is. 

Probably the only insurable losses in the heist were the hole in the wall and the glass case the jewels were stored in.

Most of the Louvre’s collection is literally priceless. 

Meaning that their value as historical artifacts is unquantifiable. You can’t take out an insurance policy on something that’s invaluable. The cost would be prohibitive.

The only times that the Louvre takes out an insurance policy on its collection is when they’re moved or loaned to another gallery. When they’re in the museum, the Louvre is self-insured, meaning the state takes on the liability for losses.

Which is why they invest so much in security and conservation.

You might call such a catastrophic security failure “the Louvre’s Waterloot.”

Okay, okay. But your everyday Joe (or Jacques) Business Owner would never take such risks, right?

RIGHT?!

I sometimes see people take reckless risks because they think that their insurance policy is a get out of jail free card. 

Business owners leave the metaphorical doors to their proprietary or sensitive data unlocked. They treat people badly and assume that insurance will cover any wrongdoing if anyone ever calls them on it. 

But insurance is a business, too. And they’re much better than you are at guarding against risk. 

Insurance may cover negligent acts like leaving your passwords on a post-it stuck to your monitor or a tired manager accidentally leaving the store unlocked overnight, but there are assets that they can’t (or won’t) insure. 

You can collect damages on reputational loss, but you can’t recover the compounding interest that comes with a spotless reputation. 

You can clean the egg off your face after an embarrassing failure, but you can never erase the incident from your customers’ memories. 

You can replace stolen merchandise, but you can’t restore the unquantifiable value of your company’s stolen IP.

The insurance industry has a term for people who don’t take proper steps to mitigate risks. They call them a “moral hazard.” 

I'm trying to work in a killer "Dukes of Hazard" pun here, but I can't find it. So that's my moral. 

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👋 I’m Claire. I can’t wait for the puns when someone breaks into the Uffizi. 🦶

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