[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.