If your cargo moves through the Red Sea, the Black Sea, or the Gulf, marine war risk insurance is no longer a line item you skim past. Amphitrite Underwriting London, the specialist marine MGA, has appointed Jack Thompson as war underwriter with immediate effect. He is based in London and reports to Ben Jones. For freight professionals, added underwriting capacity in the war book usually means faster quotes and more room to negotiate on transits that carriers and insurers have been pricing conservatively since late 2023.
What Happened
Amphitrite announced Thompson's appointment as war underwriter, effective immediately. The role sits inside the MGA's marine war offering, and the stated aim is quicker turnaround on submissions and terms that track how routes actually change week to week.
MGAs like Amphitrite write business on behalf of capacity providers rather than carrying the risk on their own balance sheet. That structure lets them bind cover faster than a traditional market process. Adding a dedicated war underwriter in London puts more decision-making capacity in the same time zone as most European brokers placing Red Sea and Black Sea transits.
Impact on Freight Rates and Operations
War risk premiums are quoted as a percentage of hull or cargo value per transit, and they move fast. Before the Red Sea attacks began, southern Red Sea transits were priced at a small fraction of one percent of hull value. At the peak of the disruption, reported quotes ran an order of magnitude higher, and some owners simply routed around the Cape of Good Hope instead. That detour adds roughly 10 to 14 days on Asia to North Europe strings and pushes bunker consumption up with it.
For you as a shipper, the cost shows up in two places. Carriers pass war risk through as a surcharge on the bill of lading, often a flat figure per container. Separately, your own cargo policy may carry a war extension that gets re-rated when a route is added to the Joint War Committee listed areas. More underwriting capacity in the market tends to compress both over time, though it will not undo a listed-area designation. The practical near-term effect is availability: when quotes come back in hours rather than days, you can commit to a booking window instead of holding cargo at origin.
What Shippers Should Do
- Check whether your cargo policy has an active war extension before you book anything transiting the Red Sea, the Gulf, or the Black Sea. Many standard policies exclude war risk and reinstate it only on request.
- Ask your carrier to itemise the war risk surcharge on the quote rather than accepting an all-in rate. Surcharges are frequently per container, so the figure is negotiable on volume and invisible if it stays bundled.
- Price both routings before you commit. Suez with a war surcharge and Cape of Good Hope with 10 to 14 extra transit days often land closer together than they look once you cost the inventory holding.
- Get war risk terms re-quoted per voyage, not per contract year. Listed-area designations change, and a quote from three months ago is not a useful benchmark.
Key Takeaway
More war underwriting capacity in London means faster quotes on contested routes, but the surcharge only comes down for shippers who ask for it as a separate line.
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Source: Hellenic Shipping News