State self-insurance (public heritage)
The principle that the State does not insure its property, including monuments and national collections, and bears losses itself, because its size lets it pool risks better than an insurer.
In France, the State is traditionally its own insurer: it buys no property insurance for its buildings and collections, and funds losses from its budget. The rationale is economic: an insurer would charge its margin and cost of capital for a risk that the State, through the spread of its assets and its borrowing capacity, can bear itself. The principle has exceptions, for example for vehicles or works lent abroad when the borrower requires it, and it does not apply in the same way to local authorities and public bodies with their own budgets. Its limit appears in extreme losses: a destroyed monument cannot be replaced, and its reconstruction depends on budget decisions and donations rather than a contractual indemnity. For insurers, this principle takes a large share of the most valuable heritage out of the market.
When Notre-Dame de Paris burned on April 15, 2019, the cathedral, owned by the State, had no property insurance; its restoration was funded by more than 840 million euros in donations, and it reopened on December 7, 2024.
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