The activity of rescuing a ship and its cargo in peril, financed by insurance because it reduces the loss the insurer would otherwise pay.
Marine salvage is insurance's arm in the physical world, the operator who fetches from the sea bottom what will be deducted from an indemnity. Its remuneration, calculated on the value saved, is borne by the hull and cargo insurers, who always prefer to pay a percentage of a value saved rather than a hundred per cent of a total loss. The salvor is therefore no picturesque accessory of the maritime world but a loss-mitigation line item, and its intervention illustrates an often underestimated function of insurance, the active limitation of damage. An apparatus of financial guarantees, bonds issued by the insurers of the salved interests, makes its dive economically possible.
After the wreck of the Lutine in 1799, the London underwriters dispatched their own agents to the wreck, quicker off the mark than the navy, to recover whatever would reduce their loss.
sauvetage, salvage, sauvetage pour le compte de l'assureur