IUMI concern over lack of Concordia report and fears lessons not being learnt

According to Mr Wikborg, the accident report is needed to help address potential problems with ship design and the management of bridge systems. He said that safety rules governing the largest vessels, such as Costa Concordia, may need to change to ensure better maritime safety standards. "We are frustrated [at the lack of Costa Concordia report] because we expect for such an event the preliminary report at least would be released by this stage. The reason being that there are a number of important issues in there that we believe would be of relevance, for example in the evolution of bridge management regulations and rules," said Mr Wikborg at a press conference following a meeting of IUMI's big cheeses in London this week. The report will also likely highlight technical design problems, continued IUMI's president. These are likely to focus on the number of watertight compartments contained within ships to aid buoyancy, evacuation drills and power outages, he said. "You can't stop problems occurring but you can and need to learn lessons."hideMr Wikborg understands that investigators have taken their time to ensure conclusions drawn are substantive. "But as an industry we would like to see things move a little bit quicker so we can look into the conclusions and try to see what is in there for us and hopefully influence the future construction of ships," he said. When asked if big ships are inherently unsafe, Mr Wikborg simply replied that they are complying with current rules and regulations. But he suggested that the rules might need to change. "I think this incident [sinking of Costa Concordia] will show to us that maybe the rules need to be revisited," he said. The appropriate use of watertight compartments and bridge management are the main areas that need to be looked at, suggested the marine expert. "The International Maritime Organization and Classification Society will have to look more closely at that [watertight compartments] based on the experiences we get from Costa Concordia and similar losses," he suggested. On bridge management safety he said: "There is a lack of checks and balances about what actually occurs on the bridge. I am not sure this will be a conclusion of the report on Costa Concordia, but it is from my point a general statement on what we as marine underwriters experience when we start diving into claims-particularly multiple claims, groundings, collisions and so forth. You find a frustrated team on the bridge," he continued. Mr Wikborg was critical of the shipping industry's safety standards, claiming they are not as high as in the aviation industry. "The major difference is aviation has learnt from their experiences to a larger extent than the marine industry. What happens in the cockpit when a flight is about to take off? You have the co-pilot asking the pilot about x,y and z. But that never happens onboard a ship for instance. In many cultures the mate doesn't talk to the captain unless he is forced to do so," said Mr Wikborg. Does this then suggest a lack of risk management expertise within the maritime industries? Yes and no, argued Mr Wikborg. "I think there are tremendous differences in standards and this goes for all insurance exposures we have. You have good operators, but then also people who don't necessarily pay the same attention...As long as there are control regimes that work and control regimes that are reasonable for whoever is supposed to comply with them I think there is improved risk management. But you will always find people who are not as concerned about these issues as others. It is our task as underwriters to identify that risk," he said. Risk identification and risk dialogue will be increasingly important as Solvency II comes into effect and the insurance market moves towards technical risk pricing, continued Mr Wikborg. "Maybe Solvency II and similar regulations will mean the approach of the industry will have to change. On pricing, for instance, we will not have to just follow the marketplace. Pricing will have to be something dependent on past history, or the past history of industry, to a large extent. That is one of the reasons why IUMI is putting more emphasis on statistics and helping our membership to improve their databases in order to review their models and reassess their modelling and maybe improve their models. It will take a generation to get away from market pricing-which we see when there is an over capacity and higher or lower demand-to a prudent modelling and actuarial approach to underwriting," he said.

IUMI concern over lack of Concordia report and fears lessons not being learnt

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