Evaluation of total risk exposure and insurance premiums in the maritime industry

- Monetary value at risk integrates ship safety quality and insurable values.
- Maritime risk of shipping is currently about 38.8 million dollar per year.
- Of all ship types, oil tankers have highest value and lowest incident risk.
- Risk exposure varies considerably across flags, owners and companies.
- Risk coverage by maritime insurance is estimated to be about 95%.

The empirical evaluation of maritime risk exposure is based on the monetary value at risk (MVR) that incorporates individual safety quality data of about 130,000 vessels, insurable values related to various potential damages, and proxies for fractions of values lost at incidents. MVR provides a tool to enhance strategic planning of maritime administrations and insurance providers, which is illustrated by a high level comparison of annual risk exposure with insurance premiums for 2010-2014. The analysis reveals a global annual insurable value of 30.6 trillion USD with associated annual MVR of 38.8 billion USD for very serious and serious incidents. Although oil tankers show the highest risk exposure (1.75 million USD per tanker per year), safety qualities are found to be best for this ship type (1.4% annual incident risk) and worst for container vessels (2.8%). Annual growth rates in total risk exposure are mostly positive with highest value for dry bulk carriers (27.8%), whereas risk exposure tends to decline for pollution of oil tankers (−2.0%) and passenger vessels (−11.3%), and for loss of life of oil tankers (−1.9%) and dry bulk carriers (−1.4%). Comparison across administrative dimensions reveals that most risk exposure lies with old open registries and with beneficial owners and the Document of Compliance companies located in high income countries. Comparison with global insurance premiums suggests reasonably adequate coverage of maritime risks (excluding cargo) with under-insurance of risk by around 5% (about 1 billion USD per year), with some uncertainties remaining for actual loss fractions of the involved damages.