BOW WAVE 151

MAT Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2002 WavyLine.com	Issue No 151 13 Oct 02
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Marine Rates Upward Bound
3. Dibden Bay Enquiry
4. European Community Transit Action Plan
5. US Transport Running Bare?
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome.

New Readers this week include:

Ex L&L Man Nick Little, now of Fairport Shipping
Wade Hooker of Harvard University
Audrey Poon of Singapore brokers TradeVest Risk Services Pte John O'Brien of CNA Insurance
Ashton O’Dwyer of New Orleans lawyers Lemle & Kelleher Marine Consultant Pedro Ferrand S, who lives in Chile Broker Nick Riddle of HSBC Insurance Brokers

News of Readers

Mr Dan Cozens, formally of Birketts Solicitors, who has worked for several years for the interests of Cargo Underwriters and Insurers, left Suffolk at the end of August 2002 to take up a new position in Pandiship Ltd, as Operations Manager in London. Now responsible for ensuring effective communications and operations in the West Coast of Africa, specifically in Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria & Angola, Mr Cozens has turned Poacher to Gamekeeper in looking after the interests of P&I Clubs and Owners.

Contact him at:

info@pandiship.com

Feedback

Mr Bob Morrison has sent in the following:

West African criminals have used a fake version of a British bank's online service to milk victims of cash, say police.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/technology/2308887.stm

Our Hungarian friend Sandor Palfi's request for information on suitable transport maps for his office wall in Budapest brought out the best from Readers. Amongst the many suggestions offered were:

From James Callahan:

For your mapless reader, I suggest:

http://www.randmcnally.com/rmc/store/strProductDetail.jsp?OID=13274&BV_SessionID=

@@@@0579379480.1033997878@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccccadcggldefhicgencfhjdfiidfjh.0&cmty=0

That link should take him directly to wall maps.

The general site is:

http://www.randmcnally.com

From Jeff Blum:

Here's a suggestion: try the website of Kelvin Hughes

http://www.bookharbour.com

and look for the Galbraiths world map (or others) or ask them at

cams@kelvinhughes.co.uk

alternatively go to:

http://www.galbraiths.co.uk/map.html

From a good friend:

The best maps are produced by Rittman AG, publishers of International Transport Journal

Go to:

http://www.transportjournal.ch.

Our Issue this week relates mainly to the
the current MAT insurance industry

Enjoy.

2. Marine Rates Upward Bound

One of the areas of the marine insurance which has so far seemed stuck in cheapo mode, notwithstanding everyone and everything else in the industry seems set to head into breakeven this year. Why the insurers of large pieces of metal floating up and down on salt water remain so keen to write this loss prone business is almost always a good question. This past week it began to dawn that the run of casualties reported in the maritime press will impact on the usual addresses in the insurance industry. A $750 million dollar run of claims is coming through the system, including the fire on the Diamond Princess, which had a full contract value of up to $500m, the grounding of the car carrier Hual Europe valued at around $50m in Tokyo Bay and others include the Jolly Rubino, Hidir Bay, Hual Troubadour, Treasure Bay, Alva Star and Limburg.

In these consolidated times, each time there
is a large maritime incident, the notice of claim goes to the same relatively small collection of insurers. The idea of spreading risk amongst the many, which our studies tell us is the essential idea underlying insurance is harder to demonstrate in 2002.

3. Dibden Bay Enquiry

It is not very common that the complicated paraphernalia of a planning enquiry for a proposed new terminal is available in the public domain for those who are interested in following it. The proposed project is Dibden Bay in Southampton. Each day your editor receives by e-mail a lengthy transcript of the day and afternoon sessions held at the Ferry Terminal in Southampton from Ms Val Lucas of the Inquiry Secretariat. It is usually simply too long to read in the time available in your Editor's day for such things. We wonder whether there is anyone who is summarising these transcripts each day?

Check out the Inquiry site at:

http://www.planning-inspectorate.gov.uk/dibden/

4. European Community Transit Action Plan

Thanks to High Cube--the Members' e-zine of the Bolero Association--we picked up this reference to the plans to sort out one of Europe's uglier little messes in the transport sector. East-west freight operators and their insurers well know how the systems used for transit declarations have been shot through with inefficiency, muddle and fraud for more than a decade. It seems this is all coming to an end...

Read the Plan at:

http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l11041.htm

5. US Transport Running Bare?

How many people at the intermediary end of transport are running without insurance? More than a few we have learned from a leading expert on the industry's problems on the on the West Coast.

Of supply there is little. After Caliber, Intercargo & AGF-MAT left the field in recent times, would-be entrants Zurich London and Royal & Sun Alliance, neither not nor cold, are said to be entertaining hesitations and doubts. This seems to leave the field to the newest entrant to this specialised market the Navigators Insurance. which is writing on the old Intercargo form (with new exclusions).

Ships and Cargoes must always get through. The insurance offering on offer must be priced to reflect realities in the global economy with larger deductibles resting on balance sheets that can afford them and insurance policies which are written first of all not to swap funds on burning level claims but to preclude commercial disasters.

6. And Finally

Thanks to Hugh Bryant for the submission of an amusing on line clock which shows great flashes of stupidity.

http://www.yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html

We found the answer to the Mike Wall's question "What do you call a group of marine surveyors" very droll. Many thanks to Flashlight, the e-zine for the marine surveying profession and Capt Roger Womersley in Bangkok.

- Collective Nouns for Marine Surveyors.

An Argosy of Marine Surveyors, could be sub-divided into:

A Sea of Owners Surveyors
A Baltic of Charterers Surveyors
A School of Class Surveyors
A Slip of H. & M. Surveyors
A Club of PANDI Surveyors
A Hold of Cargo Surveyors
A Spill of Bunker Surveyors
An Ullage of Draft Surveyors
A Splash of Pre-purchase Surveyors
An Ether of Radio Surveyors
A Radian of Angle of Blow Surveyors
A Haven of Port State Control Inspectors
A Hoist of Flag State Inspectors

To subscribe to Flashlight send an email to:

KiwiMarinehHK@compuserve.com

BOW WAVE is published each week to around 7500 Readers in the transport,insurance,shipping and finance industries.

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