An incorrect email address has ended up costing UK insurer International Transport Intermediaries Club (ITIC) $50,000 on behalf of a shipbroker.

The insurer has advised companies to double-check where they send messages following the incident, involving a request for payment made to a vessel charterer for ice dues and winter surcharges at a Baltic port.

An unnamed broker, acting for the ship's owner, had sent the invoice to an email address starting in "opsclaims@" and not the specific email address detailed in the fixture.

The company told the shipowner the claim had been passed on but did not check it had been received or accepted by the charterer, ITIC said.

The broker ended up chasing the charterer for payment regularly over the next 14 months by sending emails to the same address.

Mistake discovered

Eventually, the company realised the error and that messages should have been sent to an address beginning "claims@".

On calling the charterer, the broker was advised that the claim was not properly received and was now time-barred and would not be settled.

The charterer continued to deny any liability and the broker eventually had to pay the owner the full value of the $50,000 bill.

The money was subsequently reimbursed to the broker by ITIC.

ITIC said companies should especially look out for specific email addresses for claims provided in the fixture agreement.

These may be different to the usual "ops" or "post fixture" email addresses.

Precision is everything

"Parties should also request confirmation of safe receipt and call recipients to check that the emails have been received," the insurer added.

ITIC has previously warned brokers and agents to be on their guard following cases of email fraud.

The insurer cited the case of a shipbroker in 2019 that received an emailed freight invoice from an owner for $120,000.

The bank account detailed in the invoice was the same as that previously used by the owner.

But, several hours later, another email was received, apparently from the owner, advising a change to the bank account details because the original bank account was "no longer available to receive payment due to an internal audit", ITIC revealed.