On the morning of March 28th, with the drizzling of the mild rain, we welcomed two distinguished guests: Nick Whitear, the underwriting director of UK War Risks Club, and Edgar Wong, the Chinese representative of Thomas Miller. They came by the schedule time to TNZ Consultant Qingdao Branch to share the relevant information about war risks with representatives of the local shipping companies.

“It doesn’t take a war to have a war risks”, said Nick. He explained what are war risks, how they are covered. He also illustrated the claims and incidents with several specific cases they encountered with. The lecture vividly showed the necessity of war risks insurance for the management of a ship. By the time, accompanied with the precise interpretation by Mr. Edgar Wong, we all learned a lot from the lecture.

As it approached the Q&A session, we all released our thirst for knowledge and all get satisfying answers. 

Mr. Han, the representative of a ship company, inqired that the Loss of Hire(AKA. LOH) covers two kind of damages: one is the loss of rent during the repair when the ship was damaged from risks covered by her H&M policy, the other one is the loss of rent during the period of arrest when it was hijacked by the pirates and he wondered which one is covered in the LOH insurance provided by the UK War Risks Club. Nick told him that they provide insurance to the second damage, just need to attach the LOH to the regular annual war risks. 

A manager of a ship company, Mr. Liu asked that before sailing to the high risk area, the ship  is already with K&R and LOH whilst the ship is with cover of regular war insurance and LOH. Under this condition, if the ship was hijacked, how would the club handle the claim for loss of hire. Nick pointed that this belongs to the category of double insurance. Normally this condition is not allowed, even it did happen, the underwriter would not provide double compensation.

Ms. Li asked that if during the processing of underwriting of war risks, the goods and the relevant parties are not on the list of sanctions, but if the goods related parties was listed on the sanctions  during the insurance period, is there any affection to the war risks insurance? Nick explained that before the underwriting, the compliance department will screen the goods related parties and will effect the insurance only after ensuring they are not in the sanction list. However, the list is updated continuously, if the goods or its relative parties was subject to sanctions during the insurance, the club will not pay the compensation until the sanction was lifted. 

There are other relevant questions arisen from participants, we will not account on them one by one. Though the lecture is over, TNZ Consultant’s discussion platform is always open and free to anyone. People are free to contact us if they have any inquiries about the war risks insurance.