Wrong Rules
THERE are about 50,000 merchant ships trading internationally and a fair estimate would be that these generate between 1,000 and 1,500 declarations of general average each year. These declarations result in adjustments which cost hull and cargo insurers many hundreds of millions of dollars annually so it is in the interests of marine property underwriters that the adjustments are done on the most restricted basis; this will normally mean using the York-Antwerp Rules 2004.