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THE wall that once separated East and West Germany, Marlene Dietrich, classic albums from David Bowie and two Bundesliga football teams; Berlin is famous for many things.

And last week the German capital topped even those achievements when it played host to the International Union of Marine Insurance conference.

The good news for the 800 plus delegates assembled is that the marine insurance sector looks to be in great shape. IUMI is not allowed to discuss rates as such, but the Big Reveal each year is an analysis of premium volumes, which hit almost $39bn in 2023. That’s up almost 6% year on year.

Premiums for hull, cargo, offshore energy and marine liability were all up, with Asia and continental Europe in particular doing well, as Lloyd’s of London continued to lose ground.

That is good news for marine underwriters who have to fight the sector’s corner at diversified insurance companies, where marine is a typically a single-digit percentage slice of the overall book.

But it’s in the nature of insurers to point out the worst that might happen, and the downside of this relative success is that marine is continuing to attract new capacity, which is helping to restrain premium levels.

There are other topics of concern, of course. There was a lot of talk about the insurance implications of the Houthi campaign against shipping in the Red Sea.

Clearly, the Baltimore bridge collapse is going to have a big market, and several sessions were devoted to the implications. But there is no chance of a resolution anytime soon. A lawyer told those in the conference hall that he expected litigation to establish liability to last for anything up to ten years.

Covering the event for Lloyd’s List was law and insurance editor David Osler, who assembled an outstanding panel of senior figures in the niche to discuss some of these issues.

Joining him on this week’s podcast are:

• Richard Soja, global head of marine at Allianz Commercial

• Rob McAdams, chief underwriting officer marine at Munich Re

• Astrid Seltmann, statistician with Nordic marine insurance trade association Cefor

• Jun Lin, head of portfolio and business development at Gard

• Paul Western, head of hull underwriting at Markel