You're being shafted! That's why they're supposed to have insurance, to handle the unexpected disasters.

The price of not doing it right the first time is often extremely high, which is why they don't do it right the second time either. On the flip side it keeps more line men employed.

Submarine cables are extremely expensive because they have to be put in by a cable layer (large jobs) which means that instead of a crew of three guys and a truck you have a massive ship and it's full crew. The cable has to be pulled up every so often to be inspected which means that ship (or another one) and it's whole crew come back for another round. Submarine cables are insulated from water damage but the water itself acts as a coolant. Because of the need for cooling you can't use the submarine cables in an underground application (or so I'm told).