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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, com
by jbkiv 5y ago
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_America 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.
- mitchdoogle 5y agoWhat'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.
- stronglikedan 5y agopeople like to punctuate stories with topical humor sometimes. it's a joke, not a personal attack
- jbkiv 5y agoI 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.
- wwtrv 5y agoThe price has skyrocketed, it’s real value is negative
- biztos 5y agoIt’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) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Fortuna_(TV_series)
- brimble 5y agoI'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 5y agoThis. 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 5y agoAs 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 5y agoWhat 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.
- TremendousJudge 5y agoWait, you didn't answer your question. Who owned the gold? Who did the insurance company reimburse? The Spanish Crown?
- jbkiv 5y agoSorry, I just saw your comment. I just replied above.
- k3oni 5y agoAs 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 5y agoI 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 5y agoMy 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.
- satronaut 5y agowhy the jab at bitcoin? u salty bro?