Container ship MV Dali incident

The collapse of the Francis Scott Bridge as a result of a collision with the MV Dali on 26th March looks set to affect several (re)insurance lines of business.

Around 90% of global maritime cargo tonnage is insured through the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs, also providing liability insurance for marine environmental damage and injury. The Britannia P&I Club is the insurer of the vessel which was chartered by Maersk. P&I clubs reinsure each other by sharing claims above US$10m with the whole group holding reinsurance cover up to US$3.1 bn spread amongst nearly 80 different reinsurers and therefore not a significant impact for any one reinsurer.

As several news sources have reported, the Lloyd's chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown has suggested that this loss could potentially be bigger than Costa Concordia for which the whole loss was US$1.5bn part of which affected the 2012 Account.

Previous significant marine events have been the Tianjin Port explosions in 2015 and the Port of Beirut explosion in August 2020.

We cannot speculate at this very early juncture what the extent of the loss might be and who will cover the losses during the various investigations into the complex tangle of cause and responsibility. We will seek feedback from our syndicates and provide further information in the forthcoming HUR Bulletin covering the final 2021 Account result and the 2022 Account updated forecasts.