The Daily View: More than coincidence
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WHERE there’s blame, there’s a claim, or so they tell us on those nuisance marketing calls from personal injury lawyers. It’s just that nobody yet knows who is to blame for the explosion on Greece-owned aframax Seajewel (IMO: 9388807) last Saturday.
The incident is one of at least four reports in recent months of suspicious blasts on tankers that have called at Russian ports in the last year or so.
Although the signs so far all point that way, the latest such occurrence is not yet confirmed as terrorism or sabotage. It may just have been down to something far more commonplace, such as machinery failure.
But most commentators are leaning towards the inescapable conclusion that these things are now happening too often to be the outcome of the random workings of chance.
Somebody appears to have something of an animus against shipping’s involvement in this trade.
The Ukrainian government obviously falls into this category and is known to have carried out extrajudicial and extraterritorial operations against Russian targets, including the assassination of senior military personnel.
Alternatively, a third party may be freelancing in support of the Ukrainian cause. Then again, Seajewel was alongside in Savona at the time, so the involvement of Italian organised crime cannot be precluded either.
As we report, marine underwriters detect what one referred to as “a pattern of deliberate action”.
Our working assumption is that Seajewel will have had hull war risk insurance, if only on the grounds that vessels trading with Russia would be daft not to.
So, the likelihood is that a marine insurer will be on the hook for the repair bill, although we do not know which one, or even in which market the cover was placed.
Nevertheless, lawyers are clear that black operations — if that’s what this was — do give owners a legitimate claim under such policies.
The good news for everybody else is that insurers see the threat to date as confined to a relatively small number of ships and there is little chance that war risk premiums will rise all round in consequence.
Meanwhile, marine insurance will stay in sharp focus for the rest of this week and most of next.
Noon tomorrow marks the hard deadline for the signing of International Group P&I policies, which cover 85% or so of the world fleet by tonnage.
David Osler
Insurance editor, Lloyd’s List
