The insurance of the Bayeux Tapestry: a vast sham

The relocation of the Bayeux Tapestry to London will therefore be insured by the United Kingdom for the sum of £800 million, the equivalent of €917 million, almost one billion. This amount, revealed by the Financial Times, must, however, still be approved by the British authorities. It will be guaranteed by the Government Indemnity Scheme, a procedure allowing the British to have works loaned to non-commercial institutions, such as museums, insured directly by the British Treasury, thereby saving themselves often prohibitive insurance costs. It is also necessary to distinguish the insurance for transport from that for the exhibition itself. The first can vary between 1 and 3 % of the value of the object being transported. If we assume a cost of 2 % for the Bayeux Tapestry, estimating its value at €917 million, this would represent, at a minimum, €18 million. To this must be added insurance during a one-year exhibition, which can be estimated at the same percentage, again €18 million. A total cost of €36 million would therefore have fallen to the British Museum, assuming a private company had agreed to insure an object for such a potential indemnity.

First of all, let us note that this value obviously makes no sense. Not that the price would not reach this figure, in the impossible hypothesis that the Bayeux Tapestry were put up for sale (there are surely billionaires in the world who would fight to own it). But because insurance must allow for the replacement of the insured object if it were destroyed. Which, in this extreme hypothesis, would obviously be impossible: there is nothing in the world equivalent to this work. It is not financially priceless, because, like everything, it would have a market price. But it is priceless in terms of heritage.

Next, because, in this hypothesis, what would the French state do with the €917 million received? Can one believe for a single second that it would dedicate it to acquisitions? And for which museum? Bayeux? French museums in general? Knowing that the State is its own insurer for cathedrals, that it did not contribute a single euro for restoration after the fire, and that it is still begging for restorations that fall under its responsibility (see the article), one can imagine it would be more than tempted to keep the money for something else entirely.

Above all, this in no way represents real insurance. Because, as in any insurance contract, one must look at the fine print. And the English art historian Neil Jeffares has drawn our attention to a particularly important point: the Government Indemnity Scheme explicitly excludes “The condition of the object (including inherent vice or a pre-existing flaw) at the time of its loan”). Yet it is precisely the condition of the Tapestry that makes its loan impossible without major risks, and it is indeed this condition that is most likely (if one can say so) to be the cause of serious incidents it could suffer. What would happen in such a case? The Government Indemnity Scheme could not apply. And the British Treasury would therefore be entitled not to reimburse the sums provided. Who would then be responsible, and who would pay?

As Neil Jeffares also pointed out to us, nothing is said about the conditions for claiming indemnification. The cost of repairing minor incidents may be small, but what about potential delays in the exhibition at the Musée de Bayeux during its reopening, which could be much more costly, or the reduction in the heritage value that this would cause to the Bayeux Tapestry, which could amount to tens or even hundreds of millions of euros? None of this is known, and probably nothing has yet been specified, which demonstrates the astonishing degree of amateurism of this entire operation.

Here are some of the many areas of uncertainty of this loan, which aims to give the illusion of a perfectly controlled operation, conducted under the strictest safety conditions and with all financial and insurance guarantees, whereas the reality is exactly the opposite.
It is still possible (and desirable) to sign our petition.