[jbkiv]

I was indirectly involved in such a discovery in the 80s. A Spanish Galleon had been found in the Atlantic, off the SouthEast coast of the US, by a private, commercial, diving expedition. Gold was found (it may have been the main reason for that expedition).

Congratulations were in order. But the question was: who owns that gold? Without getting into a lot of details, if you find a ship floating away or something at the bottom of the ocean, it is yours to keep. Sometimes the owners and passengers are rescued from small sailboats as the sinking is imminent and the craft is sunk as she would present a hazard to navigation. Or that boat is left floating away. I recall such a case in 1994 a sailboat had been abandoned off the coast of North Carolina, the crew had been rescued with a Coast Guard helicopter. That sailboat was found a year later off Cape Hatteras. Bottom line the boat was rescued, her owners were found, and the insurance company had to negotiate a return (they paid the owners for a total loss).

That part is important, so let’s go back to that galleon full of gold coins (unlike bitcoins they had appreciated in value over three hundred years). That load was insured by the oldest insurance company at the time, the Insurance Company of North America (INA). INA became CIGNA, then ACE and is now Chubb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance_Company_of_North_Ame...

Yes you can mock insurance companies for their archaic systems, flat files and old windows machines. But paper files were kept. They had paid for that loss. Recovering that gold was just a matter of filing legal documents. Negotiations ensued with the underwater gold diggers. A deal was reached.

[biztos]

It’s a great story, but I don’t understand how the insurance company is relevant to the finders. They found it, it’s theirs (you just said) so the insurance company… wants to pay above market value for nostalgic reasons?

Incidentally there’s a miniseries about this topic I just started watching, the overacting on the Spanish side of the production is cringeworthy but it’s a fun premise, you might like it. And if you already know it, you might comment on its veracity!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Fortuna_(TV_series)

[jbkiv]

The insurance company paid the claim to the owner of the shipb, or whomever bought the insurance contract. This is how Lloyds of London got started.

The insurers are entitled to recovery. It happens in the case of mink fur theft, bank robbery, of ships salvaged and sold for scrap metal. Whomever bought the insurance contract got their money.

Even with a fire where everything is destroyed, there is always potential for recovery (I am not talking about a private house). In a plant or a warehouse storing computers, electronics, the insurance company will reimburse for the loss at a given valuation agreed upon in the contract: replacement value, market value. Then the insurance company will contract with a cleanup company and will sell the equipment (sometimes just smoke damage) to the wholesaler. That wholesaler will clean up the equipment and sell that on Amazon or ebay. More often they forget to mention the circumstances.

Here the insurance company has paid for those gold bullions, the owner was happy and is dead by now. The insurance company claims that they have title to that gold, hence a deal with the salvage company.

[rahimnathwani]

I'm confused by these two statements:

1. "if you find a ship floating away or something at the bottom of the ocean, it is yours to keep"

2. "The insurance company claims that they have title to that gold, hence a deal with the salvage company."

#1 says the salvage company has full claim to the gold

#2 says the insurance company has some claim

If the salvage company owns the gold, why can't they just ignore the insurance company and sell to the highest bidder?

[wahern]

I think point #1 is wrong. According to the International Convention on Salvage, the salvor has a right to a reward. See https://www.jus.uio.no/lm/imo.salvage.convention.1989 Negotiations, arbitration, and legal disputes likely have to do with establishing the amount of the award; that and all the other potential ancillary issues, like time bars, establishing rightful owner (e.g. not abandoned), subrogation rights, etc.

[itisit]

Ownership and title aren't exactly the same thing.

[pvaldes]

> "if you find something at the bottom of the ocean, it is yours to keep"

This is not so clear in the age of the submarine communication cables

[stouset]

> The insurance company claims that they have title to that gold, hence a deal with the salvage company.

Sure, but were the original owners alive today and the gold savaged, it would be considered the property of the salvage team. Why does this precedent change when an insurance company is involved?

[brimble]

I'm with you. I'm not following how reimbursing the original owner years and years ago gives the insurance company a stronger claim to ownership of a wreck than being the original owner (if un-reimbursed by insurance so that's not a factor, one supposes)

[djbebs]

This. It makes no sense, and insurance contract is merely a transfer of risk, and potentially ownership of any claims. It does not in itself create any claims

[lazide]

As mentioned above, as part of the insurance company settling claims they often get ownership rights to the now damaged/destroyed/lost goods. That way they can recover some of their loss, and can quite explicitly stop (from a legal perspective) certain types of insurance fraud. Stuff like ‘losing’ jewelry and then conveniently finding it again later becomes theft AND insurance fraud, for instance.

So they became the new owner, AND had actually kept the paperwork.

[brimble]

What tripped me up was the seemingly-conflicting notion in the post that, typically, salvage belongs to the salvager, not the owner. It seems like the opposite is true? How it read to me was that there must be some kind of exception for insurers once they take ownership of something, but if the default is actually that the owner still owns it (minus reasonable salvage fees, and if they can prove it) and the point was that it was impressive they could still prove it after all that time, then it all makes sense.

[lazide]

That’s not what is happening, or what salvage means?

if there is no identifiable owner, then the salvor (the one who salvages) is generally entitled to the property as a reward for salvage, but not always. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_salvage]

If there IS an identifiable owner, the salvor is entitled to a reward that takes into account the difficulty in salvaging and the value of the salvaged property, assuming there was no contract that was more specific.

[TremendousJudge]

Wait, you didn't answer your question. Who owned the gold? Who did the insurance company reimburse? The Spanish Crown?

[k3oni]

As i read it the insurance company reimbursed the crew that found the gold, and the insurance company owned the gold as well as they paid the original owners of the ship for their loss(but you can't own something that you don't have), they had to reimburse the crew that found it for their work/expenses etc. I might be wrong but that's what i got from the OP's story.

[brimble]

I read it the same way you did, but I'm confused that paying out insurance gives the insurer a stronger claim to property than buying something. Is a wreck at the bottom of the sea only still someone's property if that someone is an insurer?

[soneil]

My very lose understanding is that finding a wreck doesn't confer ownership. It confers salvage rights, and if the owner doesn't compensate for salvage (or the assumed costs of salvage), you get to keep what you salvage in payment.

So when there's no-one who can make a legal claim, and is willing and able to cover your costs - it starts to look a whole lot like "finders keepers". But if there's a clearly defined owner, and they're able to meet your costs, you have no right to keep it.

(For a clearer example - if someone gives your boat a tow, they can't refuse your payment and keep your boat, that'd be absurd. But if you refuse to pay they can recover those costs. Adding a few hundred years in doesn't change this, it only makes proving ownership more complex.)

So as I understand it - when the insurer compensates the owner, they assume ownership of the property. You can't lose something, claim insurance, then find it, and keep both property & payment. So when it comes to salvage - if the insurer can prove ownership and cover costs, it's their property.

[gamblor956]

This.

Shipwrecks are governed by maritime salvage law, an international set of legal conventions governing the recovery of vessels and properties aboard them.

In a nutshell, the putative owner of the vessel or the properties recovered from it has two years from the end of salvage operations to lay claim to the vessel/goods recovered. If the salvage was not performed under contract, then they must pay fair value for the salvage services, but the sources I found are all over the board on what "fair value" is in that context.

[jbkiv]

Sorry, I just saw your comment. I just replied above.

[satronaut]

why the jab at bitcoin? u salty bro?

[naikrovek]

to get reactions like yours.

also because Bitcoin is a scam.

[satronaut]

this bro's salty

[mitchdoogle]

What's the point of mentioning Bitcoin? Why do people have such an irrational hatred of cryptocurrency?

You're not even correct. Bitcoin value has skyrocketed compared to gold, even if you go back 200 years.

[wwtrv]

The price has skyrocketed, it’s real value is negative

[stronglikedan]

people like to punctuate stories with topical humor sometimes. it's a joke, not a personal attack

[jbkiv]

I am sorry about my semi sarcastic comment on bitcoin. I apologize. But bitcoin is portrayed "as a storage of value" and I wanted to show a REAL case where in fact GOLD was a real storage of value 200 years laters.