Protection and indemnity insurance

What happened is because of Russia invading Ukraine, the West sanctioned the main insurers, which are all Western, by the way.

It's called P&I Club.

It's third-party insurance.

They're all Western.

Except Japan, I think.

But otherwise, you have West P&I, and you have Guard in Norway, and you have Swedish Club in, obviously, Sweden, and you have Skuld in Sweden, and you have London P&I Club, and UK P&I Club, and so forth.

It's all Western.

And the West stopped these insurers from allowing them to insure Russian ships.

All of the above, I think, explains why today's guest makes for such a strong and insightful interviewee.

Ståle Hansen is the President and CEO at Norwegian P&I Club Skold, and this podcast will bring you right up to date with the marine insurance world.

It's refreshing to speak to someone as client-focused and straight-talking as Stola.

From the latest on the major Dali-Baltimore bridge claim, to the challenges of dealing with war, AI and marine cyber exposures, as well as the ongoing modernisation, professionalisation and consolidation of the PNI world itself, Stoller is direct and unequivocal.

And it was founded presumably by a group of Norwegian ship owners.

Yes.

So Skull was actually the first P&I club outside London and was founded by the Norwegian shipowning community because they wanted to have insurance closer to their home and their operations.

So they didn't have to travel to the London coffee shops all the time.

straightforward the boat's got its own character it's had an ownership history that you know the new buyer is going to be buying into and that is often accompanied by underwriters saying like look we need to get an expert to do a valuation survey and you know for those boats it would be a birth on that some of the underwriters look to as you guys are cemented as being experts in that field.

So I've got down here about P&I so what is P&I and when does an owner actually need it?

Good question.

In car insurance, we have it as fully comprehensive or third party liability only.

So that could be the mast, the rigging, the engines, the bow thrusters, the rudder.

But the main superstructure, including the hull and winches and anything that comes as the physical asset, is the hull and machinery.

Separately to that, you have the third party liabilities and in the higher echelons of risk, that is referred to as P&I, which stands for protection and indemnity.

And at the end of the day, both of those policies protect the owner of the vessel.

[on-hold music] Welcome to this Lloyd's List podcast.

I'm Felicity Landon, and today my guests are from London P&I, a leading global mutual marine insurer, and one of the core members of the international group of P&I clubs.

I'd like to welcome Victoria Papageorgiou, commercial director of London P&I, and Dhananjay, who is senior claims manager of London P&I and a former seafarer himself.

Today, we'll be discussing how the geopolitical instability we see in the Red Sea, the Black Sea, and the Strait of Hormuz is impacting the effectiveness and welfare of global safe- seafarers.

With many still facing repatriation challenges, we are going to look at what steps can and should be taken to support our crews during challenging times.

We'll look at the role of a P&I club in supporting ship owners and, by extension, their crew, and look at what London P&I has been experiencing in recent months amid rising pressures on seafarers and related crew claims.

As we all know, this is coming at an extremely rapid pace of change in the shipping industry, from digitalization and technology to new regulations and the drive to decarbonize.

Crucially, the need for an expanding global crew has never been greater, with more and more seafarers needed to support a growing fleet.