Maritime piracy risk coverage: stakes and challenges

In view of the current status, marine transport is faced with two major challenges.

• The first pertains to the solutions offered by insurers to marine carriers with adequate schemes and premiums. On this point, and despite a better current approach to maritime piracy risks and a wider range of products offered by insurers, many players in the marine transport chain remain poorly or inadequately insured.
• The second issue pertains to the insurers' ability to cope with the potentially colossal financial consequences of a very large-scale cyber-attack: attack on giant container ships and oil tankers, paralysis of very large ports, ...

Under what conditions would this risk, with its international implications, be reasonably insurable? Collaboration and information exchange between the various players in the sector are essential prerequisites for any prevention in this field. When applied, the guidelines and recommendations formulated by international organizations complete the preventive mechanism for this risk. But are they enough?

Pooling cyber-security risk is faced with a number of obstacles. Given the colossal nature of the issues at stake and the challenges to be met, the reduction of acts of maritime piracy, which in many cases amount to acts of terrorism, calls for increased collaboration at the highest level between public authorities, insurers and reinsurers.

This could be done on the basis of an inventory established by an independent international body, with the aim of drawing up an exhaustive list of the various laws, regulations, directives, etc. already in place. The aim would be to supplement existing preventive security measures where necessary, and to develop new mechanisms designed to drastically reduce or even eradicate acts of maritime piracy, including cybercrime attacks.