A peek into marine insurance

Setting of scenario

After a short opening and a look at recent market trends, this is the scenario that will be reality for the participants at Norwegian Hull Club's Marine Insurance Workshop for the next two days. An emergency team of five is established - all being good sports and taking on the task with no further questions. The team is supported by Claims Handling Director of Norwegian Hull Club, Mr. Åge Solberg, who has great experience from handling claims and emergency situations. Together with the rest of the "employees" in Norwegian Hull Shipping Inc., the Emergency Response Team and Mr. Solberg start to break the situation down, in order to analyze and determine what kind of risk the vessel and the company are now in.

Understand an underwriter

Before looking into how to handle this delicate situation, the audience needed background information to understand how an insurance policy works and what it covers. Petter Gustav Meyer of Henschien Insurance Service was the only external speaker at the workshop, having being invited to explain the broker's role in this process. Together with Senior Underwriter Atle Fjeldstad, Meyer went through the insurance process from the first request to accepting the policy.

Information in an inferno

After a lunch break Director of Client Services Geir Skoglund and his Project Advisor Hildegunn Nilssen ran through a short OPINTEL of the case. This is a presentation of what information you can find regarding the vessels involved, the setting around the accident - such as weather, other vessels nearby, map information for incident position and not least what the media has to say about the situation, along with all other information available through internet searches; information that can be useful and in some cases crucial for handling a case in the best manner.

Collisions and it's challenges

The workshop continued with a look in to collisions in general, and the legal challenges connected to them, before Åge Solberg, leading most of the presentations ended the professional session of the first day of the workshop with a closer look at a particular average. Together with his colleagues Surveyor Ole Hjardeng from the Technical Department and Claims Manager Truls Langeland, he explained the 7 phases of a claim process, by use of pictures and illustrations in order to visualize a rather complicated process in order that it should be more easily accessible for the audience.

Don't stop me now - I'm having such a good time

After a long day and long but interesting agenda, the participants were invited to dinner at "Akvariet i Bergen" - the Bergen Aquarium. The dinner started with a one-hour's guided tour, where the guests could watch dancing seals and pet snakes and lizards. Some brave souls even exposed themselves to the risk of having a snake draped around their neck, and the insurance company could heave a sigh of relief when all guests were safely seated around the tables in the banqueting room "Rotunden", where they were surrounded by varieties of Norwegian fish on all sides.
The menu of asparagus and halibut seemed to please the guests and the conversation around the tables was animated and cheerful. When the student choir Optimum from the Norwegian School of Business and Administration entered the room, that added to the prevailing good mood. 20 young, talented entertainers raised the roof and atmosphere to an even higher level. The chocolate fudge dessert was the icing on the cake!

Salvage or no salvage? That is the question.

When is a vessel in danger? And what actions should be made if it is? Åge Solberg opened the second day of the workshop with a salvage scenario, in which the audience were presented with different scenarios and their outcomes. His main message was the importance of early notification; it is so much better when a case decreases from worst case to a minor case - than the other way around.

Domestos and his wine

It is hard to believe that any of the participants at the Marine Insurance Workshop left without remembering general average. A complicated subject for sure, but after having been introduced to Mr. Domestos, whose wine was sacrificed in order to save a vessel and the other freight owners' wine, at least the principal of general average became fairly logical to the audience.
From Loss of Freight the workshop went on to Loss of Hire (LOH), and Director of Adjusting, Mr. Olav Tufta, assisted Åge Solberg in explaining the principals of LOH and when, why and how it comes into force in case of an accident. Paragraphs and conflicting interests between the H&M insurer and the LOH insurer were visualized and discussed to enlighten the audience about the insurance that secures the client a stable income also when the insured vessel is out of work during repair following an incident.

Pirates, terror and war

A rather hot topic concluded the two-day workshop. Piracy has never been off the agenda ever since the activity started to pick up and expand in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean some years ago. Assistant Director for Client Services, Stein Are Hansen, live from Singapore, gave a brief look into these criminal operations, that have become big business, not only for the pirates. He also touched upon the issue of terror, that in appearance is closely related to the piracy, but in reality is a completely different matter.
David Bellamy, Norwegian Hull Club's Director of Underwriting, and also host for the entire two-day event, closed the presentations by emphasizing that our growing book of War business also benefits from the competence and service on display, something that marine members and clients are already used to and have come to expect from the Club.

A pleasant event

Norwegian Hull Club would like to thank all participants for taking part in the Marine Insurance Workshop and contributing to a successful event. We look forward to welcoming new "employees" next time!