New American Club chief wants to grow without losing ‘boutique’ identity

Dorothea Ioannou has just taken the helm of the smallest of the 13 protection and indemnity mutuals that make up the International Group of P&I Clubs.

And while she told TradeWinds that an ambition to grow the American Club “goes without saying”, she sees the insurer’s smaller size as core to its identity. So growth for growth’s sake is not on the table.

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“We consider ourselves a very boutique-style club that has members in the club for over 20 years — maybe 25 years, when we first entered the international scene,” she said, speaking over Zoom from the home she retained in Greece from her years as the American Club’s highest-ranking executive there.

The New York-headquartered American Club, where Ioannou became chief executive of its management company — the Shipowners’ Claims Bureau — on 1 August, has grown. Its latest annual report trumpeted 13% growth in its P&I tonnage, which now amounts to 20m gt.

But it is not out to be a Gard, the world’s largest P&I club, though Ioannou said she would like the mutual to add 1m gt per year, growing as the world fleet increases while gradually expanding market share.

“We do it slowly, steady,” she said. “Because we don’t want to grow faster than what we can handle as a group, and we also like to build based on relationships, not just based on growth for the sake of growth. Our goal is not to become like the other clubs. Our goal is to remain true to our identity.”

Key to that slow growth ambition is staying accessible to members. Ioannou said she knows virtually all of the club’s members personally and, like predecessor Joe Hughes had been, she always wants to be a phone call away for them.

Hughes, who will remain chairman at the Shipowners’ Claims Bureau, echoed the goal to focus on measured growth to ensure it is done in a prudent way, with careful analysis about the risk profile of members that are added to the club.

He said that also allows the American Club to “maintain our overarching characteristic as a members’ club that is very sympathetic to the needs of the members and to work very hard on their behalf”.