The Norwegian Hull Club moved from very traditional offices in Bergen city centre to state-of-the-art headquarters this year.

It didn't move far, but the new base is a world away from the old one.

A room of its new home has been decorated in a traditional Norwegian style in a nod of respect to its 184-year history. But the other rooms better reflect the image it now wants to project of an ambitious, modern marine insurance company that embraces environmental, social and governance (ESG) business practices.

This year, it published its second annual ESG report. Head of communication and marketing Hildegunn Nilssen, who has been closely involved with developing the strategy, said Norwegian Hull’s approach fits with many of the core principles of ESG.

“Our mission is to secure lives, health, environment and property, and that has been our mission for many years and that is very well incorporated in how we do our work," she said.

"We really believe we can contribute toward reducing pollution and the risk to lives in incidents. We can use our experience from many cases to help our clients handle the situation.”

Chief executive Hans Christian Seim has followed a strategy of taking on the role of claims leader, when it can, in its syndicated hull insurance business, which is typically split between numerous cover providers.

As claims leader, it not only has to process claims but mitigate losses and environmental damage in a casualty situation. The role also involves using its dedicated marine expertise to prevent accidents.

Minimising consequences

“In addition to supporting the shipowner when claims occur, to minimise the consequences, a major part of being the claims leader of a membership-based organisation is to transfer our experience into loss prevention,” Seim said. "This element is maybe as important because it will also lead to less claims.

“Our insurance policies are not just offloading risk and de-risking the owner, but we also play an active role as a supportive strategic partner in training, and also when the claim occurs. That is the key and core of what we believe in and what we think makes a difference.”

A purpose-built emergency response room fitted with the latest digital technology helps the club manage and coordinate its response to live casualties.

“That room is a very important part of how we are developing,” Nilssen said. “The more big data we have, and the more knowledge we can gather in that room, then the more help that we can offer our clients or try to prevent casualties by issuing warnings.”

Global decarbonisation

The Norwegian Hull Club is ready to provide policies that will cover the use of new decarbonisation technology. Photo: Roberto Venturini/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

The other pillar of ESG is sustainability and the global move towards reducing carbon emissions. As a financial services provider, Norwegian Hull does not produce a significant amount of greenhouse gases, but shipowner members do.

Seim believes the organisation can play a role in supporting its members to achieve zero emissions, by providing policies that cover any new risks that might come along with low-emission propulsion technologies.

“We will not exclude new innovation like LNG, batteries and fuel cells but we will support them and try to find products in order to help our members with innovation,” he said.

One issue is whether, as a mutual, it would reject existing or prospective members that do not fit with its own ESG principles.

Seim said its members are closely vetted and, as responsible shipowners, already largely share its business principles.

“The clients we have are high-level companies, which know that reporting on ESG will be a ticket to trade,” he said. “So I think they will more or less do it, which relieves us from the duty of policing.”

Marine Benefits branch

There is also a direct social welfare aspect to the work of Norwegian Hull. Its subsidiary — Marine Benefits — has been established to provide healthcare cover for seafarers, many of whom would not normally be able to afford it.

The service has about 104,000 members signed up and is growing at around 4% a year.

Marine Benefits recently produced a survey, Refresh, which attempts to provide an overview of seafarers’ well-being. It has also established a service called E-Psychologist, which provides mental health counselling to seafarers with health cover.