West creates charterers and traders insurance team
The West of England P&I Club has created a dedicated charterers and traders product team to manage its Charterers Comprehensive Cover.
Suumit Madhu will lead the new team with support from Nicola Goff, Christina Anderson, Chris Ward and Paul Kaye, covering both underwriting and claims support for members.
According to P&I, charterers operate in an increasingly litigious environment which is further compounded by the evolving quantum of risks. Operating without specialist insurance leaves charterers exposed to third-party risks, which can quickly lead to significant claims.
A typical charter party may contain a variety of obligations making the charterer potentially liable for damage caused to the vessel and other liabilities during the fixture, for example with cargoes that are dangerous, being inflammable, corrosive, or explosive or which might compromise the ship’s stability, such as bulk cargoes that tend to liquefy or containers of mis-declared weight. A charterer may be strictly liable for any ensuing liabilities even where the properties of the cargo in question were not declared correctly by their shipper.
These risks faced by charterers have continued to evolve in recent years and West’s Charterers Comprehensive Cover provides flexible cover with variable limits to meet these complex claims scenarios as well as primary delay cover.
