Piracy Protection
A tailored product to meet new patterns of piracy costs to owners, with extended coverage and emergency response expertise.
The West Piracy Protection product is Kidnap and Ransom insurance for shipowners, a tailored solution protecting shipowners and operators and their crew against the outcomes of piracy attacks in high-risk areas such as the Gulf of Guinea and the Gulf of Aden.
This product brings together West P&I and the Hamilton Syndicate at Lloyd’s – with the Hamilton Piracy Protection policy made available through West P&I as a service for Members, non-members and brokers.
Key Features
- An enhanced Kidnap and Ransom product proposition created between West P&I and Hamilton, with in-built specialist services provided by Crisis24 and HFW
- Includes legal service cover as standard, unlike many other Kidnap and Ransom products
- Cover extends to intent to kidnap. Including response service, additional expenses and personal accident
- Provides indemnity for 14 days after the vessel has been released, under an extension cover available to protect against Loss of Hire
- Includes reputational risk cover
- Cover can be purchased on either a voyage by voyage basis, or as an annual policy
Insured Losses include:
- Payment of ransom
- Loss of ransom in transit
- Response consultant fees
- Additional expenses – including repatriation and rehabilitation of crew and unscheduled port calls
- Legal Liability
- Personal Accident
- Under a separate extension, Loss of Hire arising out of the seizure or an attempted piracy boarding where captives are not taken
Insured Events under the ‘Piracy
Protection’ policy wording:
- Piracy – captives taken or allegedly taken
- Seizure – of the vessel, illegally followed by a ransom demand in each scenario
- And Piracy attempts – where no captives are taken
Why buy it?
Piracy
- Legal Services –Piracy Protection offers legal services. Many other competitor products do not: even where legal advice is covered, it is not always clear whether the advice extends to legal services. In this proposition, legal expenses are covered within Additional Expenses.
- Reputational Risk – This product covers Additional Expenses and provides the services of HFW to assist in managing threats to a company’s reputation.
- Piracy Boarding – Traditional piracy policies do not cover events where no hostages are actually taken. This product includes cover for the intent to kidnap. The extension covers Response services, Legal Services, Additional Expenses (bunkers, port fees, medical and psychiatric services), Legal liabilities and Personal Accident.
- HFW Legal Services – Clients have access to HFW Legal Services, experts in piracy situations and the market leader in this field.
Loss of Hire:
For Gulf of Aden and Gulf of Guinea, standard LOH coverage is very limited and not effective. Loss of Hire (LOH)
policies tend to have a time-based excess e.g. 14 days. In reality, a quite plausible scenario in the Gulf of Guinea is that pirates will either:
- board a vessel and take hostages away, or
- board a vessel and fail to capture hostages; the crew might manage to take shelter in a citadel and the pirates might react by damaging the vessel before leaving without hostages.
In either of these 2 situations, the incident may last only a few hours. Under conventional LOH, coverage would cease at the point the pirates leave the vessel. Therefore, the conventional LOH policy does not respond to the time it takes to get a relief crew on board, or to carry out repairs to the ship to make it seaworthy to continue its voyage. In contrast, the Piracy Protection policy wording provides indemnity for 14 days after the vessel has been released.
Piracy Protection FAQ's
This new offering is designed to enhance the Club’s services to Members, while broadening our appeal to non-members and further grow our footprint in the global marine insurance markets. The new products will complement our core P&I, Defence, Hull and Extended Covers, as well as West Partner products for delay and Primary Loss of Earnings (with Nordic), Cyber Risks (with Astaara) and Legal and Claims Consultancy (with Qwest). We now provide such cover as part of our drive to give Members, non-members and brokers a wider market choice.
West Piracy Protection is being provided directly by the Club (and supported by our partner Hamilton on a reinsurance basis).
West Piracy Protection is available through West P&I as a service for Members, non-members and brokers, who trade their vessels in high-risk piracy areas. You can send an enquiry through to the team using westwar@westpandi.com
West Piracy Protection will cover against the risk of piracy where captives are taken, piracy attempts where captives are not taken, and illegal seizure of a vessel. An extension of cover is available to protect against Loss of Hire on the same basis.
West Piracy Protection is provided directly by the West’s underwriting team and is fully supported by our reinsurance partner, Hamilton. Claims response will be provided by key business partners: Crisis24 and HFW
Legal Services.
All lines will be written 100% by West P&I.
Our Piracy Protection Partners
Underwriting/Reinsurance Partner
Hamilton’s team is supporting this
proposition with their market-leading
K&R expertise, and will be supporting
West in a reinsurance capacity.
Claims Service Partners
Crisis24 - Your global partner in integrated security risk management
With more than 30 years of experience and infrastructure in 45 countries, Crisis24 has taken risk management by storm, enabling large companies to mitigate threats and confidently conduct their operations at home and abroad.
HFW- A global law firm with deep, sector focussed expertise
HFW is an international law firm with over 600 specialist lawyers worldwide. HFW is widely recognised as the leading global law firm managing and resolving incidents in complex and hostile environments.
Your Piracy Protection Specialists
Why West of England?
The West of England is a leading insurance provider to the global shipping industry, combining financial strength with outstanding service to help its Members meet the continually evolving liability environment in which shipowners, operators and charterers operate.
We also safeguard and promote our Members’ interests in many other areas of their business. We believe that protection for our Members is as important as the indemnity insurance we offer. To provide both we are responsive to our Members’ needs and proactive in looking after their interests, enabling them to more easily achieve their business goals.
Our strengths
- An international Club with a global membership
- A worldwide office network providing dedicated underwriting, claims and loss prevention service to our Members
- A Member of the International Group of P&I Clubs
Download the brochure
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War & Piracy Protection PDF (2.7 MB)