When the map turns red.
Standard marine policies exclude war. That's the fine print most owners never read until an attack, a seizure, or a corridor closure turns their operation into an insurance question overnight. We place standalone War Risk cover — the specialist market that steps in exactly where conventional insurance walks away. Vessels, cargo, crew, and loss of hire — protected against the geopolitical events that don't wait for your renewal date.
War risk insurance covers loss or damage to vessels and cargo from war, piracy, terrorism, and related perils excluded from standard marine policies. Cover for transits through listed high-risk areas, such as the Red Sea, is typically bound per voyage, with rates quoted as a percentage of insured value.
Damage or total loss from war, civil war, insurrection, terrorism, sabotage, mines, missile strikes, drone attacks, and unmanned surface vessels. Every named peril in the current war risk clauses — plus the emerging ones the market hasn't caught up to yet.
Capture, seizure, arrest, restraint, detainment. Blockades, embargoes, port closures, and governmental seizure. Confiscation, expropriation, and nationalisation risks (CEN) for vessels or cargo held under changing regimes.
Damage or delay from strikes, work stoppages, riots, labour disputes, and civil commotion at loading, discharge, transit, or any point in the supply chain — separate from war perils but often placed on the same programme.
Financial exposure when a vessel is idled by a war-related incident — waiting out a closed corridor, detained by a hostile authority, or repairing damage from an incident. Structured against your actual charter income, not a nominal per-diem.
Full standalone war cover, or tailored add-ons to your existing Hull & Machinery programme.
Cover for goods transiting through active war corridors, structured to hold across route diversions.
Protection for crew serving on vessels transiting or operating in designated war risk areas.
Bindable in hours for last-minute transits — no month-long underwriting cycles when you need to move now.
Wordings drafted against your specific charter parties, flag-state requirements, and cargo contracts.
When the Bab-el-Mandeb became untransitable in December 2023, one of our commercial fleet clients faced a choice: reroute twelve mid-size container vessels through the Cape of Good Hope, or wait out an indefinite corridor closure. Neither option was covered by their standard war risk endorsement. Within 48 hours our war risk team restructured their entire programme:
Result: All twelve vessels continued operating without a single day of coverage gap. Zero disputed claims across the next eight months of Cape route operations.
I've done four Red Sea transits since November. Two of them, my war cover was in doubt until the day I sailed. SRMG had the endorsement in my hand three days before we cleared Suez. The rest of the fleet was calling them by the end of the quarter.
Complimentary war risk review of your current cover, corridor exposure analysis, restructuring recommendations. No obligation.
Last reviewed: July 2026
