![]() ![]() ![]() Paul Humphris, specialist claims consultant at Ecclesiastical Insurance, said the primary issue at the moment at Notre Dame would be safety. That means finding materials and artisans who can reproduce work done in, say, medieval times, which quickly becomes very expensive. In Britain, for instance, buildings deemed to be of high historical value must be restored in the same way as they were originally built. Rebuilding a centuries-old landmark is difficult and expensive because the goal is to preserve the original character of the building, not just replace it.Įcclesiastical Insurance, a U.K.-based company that has been insuring churches for 130 years, said the structures are complicated to insure because of their age. The building contractors would have been required to have insurance, but the payouts from that would be “a drop in the ocean” compared with the cost of restoring the cathedral, said Robert Read, Head of Art and Private Client at Hiscox, an international insurance company that started as an underwriter on the Lloyd’s of London market. While French authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire at Notre Dame, attention has focused on a 6 million-euro ($6.75 million) renovation project that was underway when the blaze broke out. “Thus I would doubt that Egypt has purchased a comprehensive insurance policy for, e.g., the Pyramids of Egypt.” ![]() ![]() “The cost to them of financing the occasional repair or replacement of a unique asset, they may calculate, will be lower than the sum of the insurance premiums,” he said. High-net-worth individuals, corporations, and other entities with substantial assets - like France or any other nation-state - often choose to self-insure instead. “The insurance business operates by spreading risk over a large number of similarly situated insured parties, and obviously in the case of unique assets, there is not a large pool!” “A small number of specialized insurers, notably Lloyd’s of London, are often willing to accept the risk of undertaking such valuations, but the resulting premiums are very high,” said Bruce Huber, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. ![]()
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