By Loretta Worters, Vice President, Media Relations, Triple-I
Maritime Day is a time-honored custom that acknowledges one of many United States’ most vital industries. It’s noticed on Might 22, the date in 1819 that the American steamship Savannah set sail from Savannah, Ga., on the primary ever transoceanic voyage below steam energy.
“Nationwide Maritime Day was created by an Act of Congress in 1933 to rejoice our nation’s mariners – the Service provider Marine,” John A. Miklus, president of the American Institute of Marine Underwriters (AIMU), the commerce affiliation representing the U.S. ocean marine insurance coverage trade. “In the present day, it has expanded to incorporate all the maritime trade and home water-borne commerce, of which marine insurance coverage is an important half.”
Marine insurance coverage covers the loss or harm of ships, cargo, terminals, and any transport by which the property is transferred, acquired, or held between the factors of origin and the vacation spot. Cargo insurance coverage is the sub-branch of marine insurance coverage, although marine insurance coverage additionally consists of onshore and offshore uncovered property, (container terminals, ports, oil platforms, pipelines), hull, marine casualty, and marine legal responsibility.
“The U.S. ocean marine insurance coverage trade covers each conceivable form of vessel and cargo, whether or not it’s a small pleasure craft or yacht, on as much as the biggest cruise ship or container ship calling on a significant port right here in the USA,” mentioned Miklus, a former marine insurance coverage underwriter with in depth marine insurance coverage and reinsurance expertise.
“Marine insurance coverage and marine commerce are sometimes considered an invisible trade,” he mentioned. “Individuals see an Amazon truck arrive however do not know how that bundle discovered its strategy to their entrance doorstep.”
Insurance coverage is designed to handle dangers within the occasion of unlucky incidents like cargo losses, harm to costly ships, environmental disasters on account of oil air pollution, piracy and just lately provide chain points.
Miklus is passionate in regards to the marine insurance coverage enterprise and is happy with the work of AIMU and the trade it serves.
“In the present day, in trendy commerce, 90 p.c of the products present in our houses in all probability arrived on a container ship,” Miklus mentioned. “As important elements of commerce, these items all must be insured, and our member firms of AIMU insure these items.”
