Fewer casualties than last year
ALAN PEAT
LIKE THE general insurance industry, the marine sector is making “good money”, but it’s a soft market out there, according to Mark Caietta, group manager (marine) at Mutual and Federal, and chairman of the Association of Marine Underwriters of SA (Amusa).
It’s an overtraded market, he told FTW, and there are a lot of people in the industry trying to grow quickly.
“But what we’ve seen locally is the same risk going round-and-round, and we don’t see any new business.”
The reason they are making money, he added, is because there haven’t been the same casualties as last year - where three vessels ran aground off the SA coast and drained the finances.
The trouble is that a lot of business goes overseas where rates are cut. But, Caietta warned, there’s no local representation to look after possible claims.
However, a lot of the business placement is dictated by overseas clients and principals - and often choice is a bit short.
The softness of the market is also not purely a local phenomenon, Caietta added, having just returned from the underwriters’ annual conference in Singapore where he found that there were similar complaints from many of the foreign delegates talking about their own market places.
