The International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) has seen more countries join its project to create a global large loss database of hull and cargo claims.
When the association convened for its annual general meeting in Cape Town last year, only six countries were submitting data. But 16 nations have now signed up ahead of this September’s gathering in Toronto, Canada.
Learning curve
International Underwriting Association president Dave Matcham says it is unclear whether the project is quite ready to progress beyond the pilot stage and produce hard facts and figures.
“At this stage, we’re not sure if we have enough data to publish," he says. "But we have already learned many lessons from the pilot on where we need to change the templates and where the inconsistencies and duplication of data are.”
One problem is that major hull markets, including the US, the UK and the Nordic countries have yet to commit to the project.
Matcham thinks they can be convinced to join if the data collection requirements are adjusted.
Promising results
However, there could still be some promising results from cargo losses in store, even without their participation.
“I think cargo might show the best results because most of the major hull markets are not taking part,” he says. “But cargo insurance is much more evenly spread around the world.”
Matcham is confident the database will help bring a global perspective to marine insurance claims.
“I’m hoping it will give underwriters much better data about types of loss and areas of loss which they can match to their own books,” he says. “It will provide global information they don’t have at the moment because they don’t have access to every market’s data.”
