Protection and indemnity mutual insurers have declared the 2021 policy renewal a success after managing to secure their targeted rises in premium.
P&I clubs were budgeting on general increases of between 5% and 10% in a bid to return to an underwriting profit after a year of costly claims.
The UK P&I Club said it had managed to improve premium while achieving a 98% member-renewal rate and only a small reduction in tonnage.
Chief executive Andrew Taylor said: “The club’s primary goal remains to deliver a stable and secure club working in partnership with our members to attract carefully selected tonnage at the right rates, which we have achieved at this renewal.”
London P&I Club chief executive Ian Gooch said almost all of its members understood the need for an increase.
“The overwhelming majority of members understood and backed the action we are taking, leading to a positive result overall,” Gooch said. "We are grateful for their continued support at a challenging time for everyone."
It was a similar picture at Standard Club, which reported a 95% member-retention rate. Chief underwriter Mark Collins said the club had achieved its budgetary targets.
West of England said its position was “broadly unchanged” after the renewal and that it had maintained its insured fleet at about 145m gt.
Premium growth
North P&I said it had a slight reduction in tonnage but secured “premium growth”.
Chief underwriting officer Thya Kathiravel said: “The market remains competitive, with owners understandably very sensitive to costs. We have tried to recognise this in balancing our renewal outcome.”
The main gains appear to have been won by Nordic insurers Gard, Skuld and Swedish Club, as well as UK insurers Steamship Mutual and Britannia.
Britannia said it had an overall increase in tonnage.
Steamship said it had achieved 4.5% of its planned 5% increase in premium, and had won 5.8m gt of new business on top of growth from existing members. Chief underwriter Gary Field said he had used “innovative terms” to strike deals.
Swedish Club added 6.5m gt in new tonnage, bringing its book to a new high of 88m gt.
Skuld said it had seen P&I tonnage increase by 5% following the renewal, bringing its mutual tonnage to 101m gt.
Gard said it had won an additional 17m gt of tonnage in the last policy year, mostly at the renewal.
Gard comes out stronger
Mark Cracknell, head of P&I at broker Marsh, said he believed Gard — the largest and financially robust of the P&I clubs — had come out of the renewal even stronger.
“From what we have seen, Gard has done very well," he said. "It is an attractive place for owners to put their business if they are not happy where they are. It has an owner’s general discount — a policy to return surplus funds to members — which appeals to a lot of people.”
However, Cracknell said there were broad differences between clubs on their approach to the renewal.
“It was a bit mixed there were some cases where people really did dig their heels in, but some were more flexible on rates,” he said.
