BOW WAVE 179

Video Conferencing Edition

news and views on trade, insurance and risk

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Wavy Line	sam@wavyline.com
(c)2003 WavyLine.com	Issue No 179 28 Apr 03
Published free of charge to Readers
Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Reflections on SARS
3. LMP
4. HIH--Incompetence Not Fraud
5. The Nationwide Academy for Dispute Resolution (UK)
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

This thought for the day was passed on to us from Lecturer Robin Bourne of the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania:

"When I die, I want to die quietly in my sleep like my grandfather did, not screaming in terror like his passengers"

Anon

New Readers this week include:

Anne-Marie Hawtin of the brokers BMS Group
Elizabeth Birch of Mediators ACI
Michael Riley of Steege Kingston

News of Readers

Ports marketing person Katherine Pui Kar LIN has moved to Hong Kong.

Contact her at:

katherine_puikar_lin@yahoo.com

A fair amount this week on the world of insurance.

Enjoy.

2. Reflections on SARS

Your editor's Quarterpoints column in Lloyd's List last week reflected on the tendency of things to atrophy as prompted by the course of this new virus:-

SARS and the reluctant traveller
Video Conferencing here we come

Several coach loads of returning boarding school pupils back from hols in Hong Kong have been staying in my part of the Isle of Wight, called the Back of Wight, close to where the Poet Tennyson used to live. They have been enjoying the unseasonably warm weather and submitting to a period of voluntary quarantine organised by their respective schools. No authority ordered this but it is a reassurance to the other parents and their concerns.

The children were first denied a crossing by the ship operators but later they were admitted so long as they stayed on board their coaches on the vehicle decks rather than ascending to the lounge areas in small ro-ro ferries which mile for mile offer passengers the world’s most expensive water crossing.

At the same time Andrew KP Leung, the Director General of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London (HKETO) has issued the reassuring news that there is "zero risk" of contracting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) from coming into contact with cargoes shipped out of Hong Kong : "There is no need for any restrictions on the movements of either ship's crews or on cargoes bound from the Special Administrative Region." He added also, "Tests have proven that the virus cannot survive beyond three to four hours
independent of the human body making it impossible for any surface contamination to survive a voyage, according to WHO, whose view is shared by Hong Kong's Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr E K Yeoh. "In addition to positive steps to contain the virus and demonstrate the health of relief crew, the Hong Kong Government has implemented a quarantine period of 10 days for any person who has had close contacts with SARS patients before allowing departure from the region."

All the same, nearly all my correspondents in Hong Kong remark the SARS virus has helped to make the Pearl of the Orient a rather depressed place, avoided on WHO advice by travellers already spooked by the Iraq War. From Cathay Pacific, as good an airline as any I have ever flown , come reports, later denied, that the organisation is speculating on whether to ground its fleet next month since so few people are travelling. For now 14 000 Cathay people are being encouraged to use up their leave and to volunteer to take some unpaid leave.

The SARS Virus is reported to be a variant of the common cold. Its outbreak may have spread by
cockroaches and its transmission throughout the
world has been attributed by the less than fleet
reactions of the medical authorities in the Pearl River Delta. But the way that we live in our
globalised world has ensured that there are cases in 30 countries. Quarantine measures inevitably fail to keep up with events.

It is not difficult to see the international progress of the disease: it has spread through the containerised world, the triangle of places which describes world transport and world prosperity between Western Europe, North America and the Western Pacific. A surprisingly high proportion of the goods bought this Easter Bank Holiday in the Department Stores and DIY Shops in the world will have started their careers sailing down the Pearl or Yangtse River.

But how fragile it all looks this Spring of 2003. Can a member of the common cold family wreak all this havoc in the world economy? Is the reluctance to travel and the malaise of international aviation a passing dark episode as it proved to be after the Gulf War in 1991? Those who earn a crust from
international aviation certainly think and hope so. Or does the SARS virus trail the coming of different ways of working in international trade? Will people seriously contemplate using the technology of the internet? People who know each other quite well from courses of dealings over many years, can eschew their history of meeting regularly on numerous occasions each year, collecting many Air Miles and rather a lot of colds, and instead wave to each other’s images and get down to business on line.

That forth fifth or sixth trip to Shanghai last year might become a single occasion this and next.

3. LMP

Roger Foord's Latest Newsletter LIMP has something interesting to say on process at Lloyd's, a subject as crucial as any for the future:-

LMP

Repositories have been reported upon by the LMP group, details of which can be found on their site at:

http://www.lmp2001/publications.

Other articles and updates are also available on this site. The report is quite extensive but the objectives of the market seem to be well encapsulated in the following:

There is widespread agreement regarding the features that repository solutions for the London market should ideally display:

* Organisations should be free to opt for solutions from a provider of their choice.
* There should be international standards in place to support common interfaces e.g. for file transmission.
* Insurer users of repositories should be able to share an electronic claim file ­ held in one or more repositories. * There should be seamless inter-operation, so that users can access documents and files held across multiple repositories. * A user should be able to access all of their repository services (and ideally all of their applications) via a single login. * A user should be presented with a common "look and feel" for their repository services, even where they are using multiple solutions.
* The solution should be secure, with access provided to individual documents or files only as authorised by the "owner".

The repository problem in London is that there are many small brokers who are not large enough to face the cost of document storage and who would also not have a business reason. Then the very large brokers have an international requirement and may only need the service for their own company and not to service underwriters in London. This would have made a very good centralised service for London in conjunction with the central bureau. The opportunity was missed in the nineties partly due to the cost of document storage at the time and secondly because there were other perceived ‘e’ solutions such as electronic placing (EPS) which Lloyd’s were pursuing. In the end nothing happened!

See the site at:

http://www.rogerfoord.com

4. HIH--Incompetence Not Fraud

From the Insurance Journal comes this short report:

The long-awaited report from the royal commission investigating the collapse of Australia’s HIH in March of 2001, has been issued. It concluded, that, although there may have been breaches of civil and criminal law by the company’s managers, the company’s forced liquidation was due mainly to numerous instances of mismanagement.

Royal commissioner Neville Owen, who headed the investigation, reportedly characterized the collapse of HIH as "a shambling journey towards oblivion." Right up until it was forced into liquidation, HIH management was proclaiming that the insurer could be saved. Once Australia’s second largest insurance company, HIH lost large amounts in the London market, along with substantial sums on its U.S. business which focused mainly on workers' compensation coverage.

See the full article at:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/newswire/international/2003/04/21/28160.htm

5. The Nationwide Academy for Dispute Resolution (UK)

CH Spurrin has sent in the latest issue of the NADR Newsletter. The NADR specialises in construction and maritime dispute resolution processes.

See the site at:

http://www.NADR.co.uk

6. And Finally.....

Cathie Walker the devoted chief schmoozing executive of SillyGirl.Com has included a section along classical lines in her most recent edition:-

Top 20 Useless Phrases I Learned in Latin

Credit for this goes largely to Henry Beard for writing a book that my Latin teacher incessantly quotes from.

1. PISTRIX, PISTRIX! = SHARK, SHARK!

2. Credo Elvem ipsum etiam vivere = I think that Elvis is still alive

3. Fors Fortis. = Fat chance.

4. Casu consulto. = Accidentally on purpose.

5. Raptus regaliter = Royally screwed.

6. Tibi gratias agimus quod nihil fumas. = Thank you for not smoking. (I use this in my house a lot)

7. Frena pro feris teneo. = I brake for animals. (Not totally useless after all)

8. Cur ullum imprimere non vis?! = Why won’t you print out?! (I say this a lot to my demon computer)

9. Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam. = I have a catapult. Give me all the money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.

10. Credo nos in fluctu eodem esse. = I think we’re on the same wavelength.

11. Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere. = If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

12. Id imperfectum manet dum confectum erit. = It ain’t over until it’s over.

13. Dolores capitis non fero. Eos do. = I don’t get headaches. I give them. (my motto)

14. Amicule, deliciae, num is sum qui mentiar tibi? = Baby, sweetheart, would I lie to you?

15. Eamus O Ianqui! = Let’s go Yankees!

16. In thermulas intremus! = Let’s get in the hot tub! (doesn’t that remind you of the SIMS?)

17. Latine loqui coactus sum. = I have this compulsion to speak Latin.

18. Machina improba! Vel mihi ede potum vel mihi redde nummos meos! = You infernal machine! Give me a beverage or give me back my money! (I say this to the machines in school all the time!)

19. Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo. = Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

20. Ita, te adloquor! = Yeah, I’m talking to you! (tough guy huh?)

Visit her site at:

http://www.sillygirl.com

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