10 Years Of Stretching Boundaries
Nordic Marine 2022: 10 Years Of Stretching Boundaries
Dear Colleagues, Clients, Broker friends and other Business Associates,
All this in a worldwide context that continued to be challenging, with the Russia-Ukraine war affecting shipping and connected industries, as well as the economy in general, with new clauses being imposed by the reinsurance market in almost all contracts and massively complicating the overall reinsurance renewals.
A year on, the geopolitical context has not improved but in fact is increasingly volatile.
Labour disruptions have not decreased either, quite the contrary, as the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war takes an increasing hard toll on the Ukraine people but on other populations as well.
On a more positive note, the freight market remained healthy in general, and our volume of activity reflected that, as new clients decided to take a tighter control of when their losses stop.
The good freight rates, combined with the uncertainty of trades, make protecting the income flow an evident priority, in particular the income during the first two weeks after an event, i.e.: the first that gets affected and the one usually excluded from all mainstream policies.
We anticipate that the freight rates, for vessels in our risk appetite segment, will remain at a similar level in 2023, together with the volatility of the worldwide risk environment.
Finally, in 2022 we saw a lower frequency of claims than 2021, allowing many clients to benefit from their own performance through their unique package and further underlining the achievement of premium volume increase.
We are very proud to have reached the 10-year landmark
In last year’s review we mentioned the addition of Jan to our underwriting team and that he, with Constantinos and Yiannis of our Piraeus team, would be the tip of the spear for Nordic’s further enhancement and development.
WEST Hull, courtesy of Nordic Marine!
By the time you will read this review, our minority shareholder, the West of England P&I Club, will have communicated to the market their further diversification in the mainstream field to propose H&M, IV and conventional LoH through the technical management of Nordic Marine.
This latest evolution has Nordic Marine managing West’s diversification and development in H&M, LoH and IV.
Whilst the West Hull facility is fronted and marketed by West of England, the underwriting, and claims’ handling is under Nordic’s management and independent authority of Jan Limnell, Constantinos Elmaoglou, Yiannis Minovioudis and Mathias Lindqvist on the underwriting side and Magnus Hammarqvist and Konstantinos Korais on the claims side.
"It is a step into the mainstream field that will be guided and driven by our selective niche approach."
It is another major step in our history so far, and puts into context Jan’s recruitment, who recognised in Nordic the opportunity to join a dynamic and highly technical team, going beyond the simple delivery of off-the-shelf covers.
But well before the launch of West Hull, Nordic launched a new product: Primary Loss of Earnings, a unique cover that combines the simplicity of the mainstream to the sophistication of niche.
In October 2022, after 4 years’ development with existing clients, we launched our Primary Loss of Earnings.
It is cover for delays following incidents that are or would be covered under an Assured’s H&M policy but that would fall within the usual 14 day deductible of a conventional LoH cover.
Our study amongst brokers and clients enabled us to develop and try a new, quasi mainstream cover whose roots are firmly grounded in our Delay cover, but with the same mechanics as conventional Loss of Hire.
The best of both worlds for clients, who can buy down a conventional LOH deductible, and brokers, who can effortlessly underline to clients its seamless connection with mainstream covers.
One further step that will hopefully contribute to highlighting how niche insurance is confusingly perceived as a luxury, when in fact it provides the mean for owners to make the safest bet in their portfolio. After all, how safer can you get when you protect the losses that no other provider will?
We can see that more and more operators, large and small, adopt this “bottom upward” loss control approach.
Our involvement in West Hull, and the A-rated reinsurers’ strong support of Nordic as the technical manager of that facility, is the recognition of Nordic’s quality approach to business, but does not mean that we are switching priorities from niche to mainstream, rather that we finally have the opportunity to stretch the boundaries of both and offer it to clients with suitable risk profile.
"Stretching boundaries, again."
Going forward, our approach remains the same as it was 10 years ago: hard work, pragmatic approach to business based on the quality of risk profile, totally flexible to adapt existing products and create new ones, with some already under development.
As we like to say, what is done and has been achieved is behind us, so the most rewarding success is… the next!
We are grateful to all our old and new Clients, Broker Friends and Business Associates, and Dan and I are sure to report more positive news this time next year again!
Thanks to all of you!