West of England believes traditional law firms are not evolving quickly enough to meet the challenges presented by a changing shipping claims market.
The protection and indemnity club is aiming to capitalise on what it sees as this inertia after forming a new legal and claims consultancy called Qwest Maritime with UK advisory company C Solutions, run by former Ince & Co lawyer Chris Beesley.
The partners told TradeWinds that they want to leave behind some of the traditional consultancies that they view as no longer being creative or commercially focused.
Beesley believes law firms in particular are suffering.
"They’re being weighed down by traditional partnership structures that expect their drawings to go up every year, and they're not evolving at the same pace as their shipowning and ship-insuring clients," he said.
"Compared to many of their commercially focused new rivals, they’re behind the times."
West of England chief executive Tom Bowsher said that what a shipowner needed five, 10 or 15 years ago is significantly different to what it needs now, as vessels evolve and regulations change.
"Qwest provides an ideal platform to create new service lines to ensure we adapt to operators’ needs," he said. "It allows us to be creative and agile, and enables us to focus on the challenges and requirements of an industry which is changing all the time."
But, so far, the Covid-19 pandemic has not seen a major increase in claims, according to the pair.
'Creative and agile'
"I remember the millennium, when we thought the world was going to come to an end," Beesley recalled. "Back then, I was head of shipping casualty at Ince & Co, and we had staff on duty at midnight to pick up the pieces from all the predicted casualties ... and then nothing happened.
"It’s too soon to reach a definitive conclusion, but so far Covid-19 is having a very limited effect from a claims perspective."
He added that there have been as many claims in May 2020 as there were in May last year.
"The only differences so far are that they tend to be larger, and with a long overdue and growing emphasis on crew welfare," Beesley said.
Qwest will provide legal advice and fee cover structure for shipowners, operators and charterers, as well as specialist cover for shipmanagers that do not have access to the benefit of an owner’s defence cover.
The idea is to fill gaps in traditional shipmanager cover while giving access to a marketplace for realising illiquid trade finance assets, as well as asset tracing and enforcement in "challenging" market conditions.
The move is the latest diversification play by West of England, following a shift into cyber risk management with Astaara this month and into delay cover with Sweden's Nordic Marine Insurance in February.
