News

International Group Reinsurance Programme for 2023/24 Policy Year

17 January 2023 No.22-022

Please be advised that the International Group (IG) Reinsurance Programme for 2023/24 policy year has now been concluded.

 

  1. General Structure

The general structure of the IG Reinsurance Programme for 2023/24 policy year is as follows (Four categories shown remain unchanged):

 

  • Club retention: US$10 million
  • Group retention: US$100 million
  • General Excess Loss (GXL) Cover: US$2 billion (US$2 billion in excess of US$100 million)
  • Collective Overspill Cover: US$1 billion (US$1 billion in excess of US$2.1 billion)

 

  1. Limits on the Cover

The following special limits on the Club covers for 2023/24 policy year are applied to the Owners’ entry (Three categories shown remain unchanged):

 

  • Oil Pollution: US$1 billion
  • Passenger: US$2 billion
  • Passenger and Crew combined: US$3 billion

 

  1. Losses arising from Malicious Cyber, Covid-19 and other Pandemics

Last year, the reinsurance program had coverage limitation for Malicious Cyber, Covid-19 and other Pandemics risks in excess of US$550 million. As a result of negotiation, the coverage for those risks has been expanded and is now free and unlimited for claims up to US$ 750 million.

 

  • Layer 1 (US$650 million in excess of US$100 million): Free and unlimited cover
  • Layer 2 and 3 (US$1.35 billion in excess of US$750 million): Each layer has an annual aggregate limit in place, totalling US$1.35 billion for abovementioned three risks.

 

The IG agreed to pool losses that exceed the annual aggregate limit and therefore could not be recoverable from reinsurers. Accordingly, there is no change to Member cover.

 

Please see the attached diagramme for further details of the programme.

 

  1. Excess War Reinsurance

Due to the ongoing active war between Russia and Ukraine, the IG’s Excess War reinsurers require Territorial Exclusion language (consistent with exclusionary language already applied by reinsurers for Primary War P&I coverage) for vessels trading in these waters. The IG is negotiating availability of sub-limited cover for affected vessels, which remains an ongoing process. However, it appears available cover is likely to be on the basis of a significantly lower per-vessel limit than for the main Excess War placement limit of US$500 million. The IG will provide details of this cover in due course.

 

  1. The IG Reinsurance rates for 2023/24 policy year

The IG concluded that there should be no change in the number of categories but that there should be some adjustments to the relative rate changes having regard to historical claims performance.

 

The IG Reinsurance rates per GT for 2023/24 policy year, including the excess war risks cover and MLC reinsurance cover, are as follows:

 

Category

2023 PY rate (US$/GT)

rate change from 2022 PY

(US$/GT)

% change

from 2022 PY

Persistent Oil Tankers

0.6663

+0.0194

+3.0

Clean Tankers

0.4051

+0.0385

+10.5

Dry Cargo Vessels

0.5991

+0.0352

+6.2

Fully Cellular Containerships

0.7277

+0.0691

+10.5

Passenger Vessels

3.8677

+0.0

+0.0

 

  1. Renewal overview

To date, the IG has seen a benign Pool claims environment for the 2022/23 Policy Year. However, there has been some deterioration in prior years and Hurricane Ian and the Russia/Ukraine war have had a significant impact on the IG’s reinsurance partners, which led to difficult market conditions going into the 2023 renewal. Nevertheless, the IG has been able to renew its reinsurance programme for 2023/24 with only a small increase in rates for shipowners.

 

The IG’s Bermudan based reinsurance captive Hydra continues to support the IG through its risk retention. The use of private placements has also continued to give shipowners greater stability, especially in a year when market sentiment has been volatile as a result of Hurricane Ian, Russia/Ukraine conflict and continued market coverage issues.

 

For more information, please see Press Release published by the IG.