Emergency Contact The Shipowners' Club doesn't like surprises Home Latest updates News The Shipowners' Club doesn't like surprises 2 Feb 2023 Download Sign up for alerts "Shipowners’ Club is now the most boring Club to review, although this is for all the right reasons" read this year’s report from P&I insurance broker, Tysers. "High praise!" according to the Club CEO, Simon Swallow. "If boring means stability, continuity and ensuring peace of mind for our Membership, then we are all doing our jobs properly". When the Club’s Board met on 31 October 2022, it was noted that the Club was in a market leading underwriting position, but potentially faced some headwinds by virtue of inflation running at higher than historic levels. "The big unknown is inflation and given that it has been a relatively benign year for claims, especially to the International Group Pool, we haven’t seen the impact of inflation. This may change, but the key thing is that we only ever ask Members for what we need" explained the Club’s Director – Underwriting, Ian Edwards. "We don’t like surprises and neither do our Members and their brokers". Sticking to that promise and mindful of increases in premium requested through General Increases in recent years, the Board resolved that no General Increase would be applied across the Membership for policy year 2023. With the exception of a 10% increase in the Yacht sector and increases for some Members operating Dry Cargo vessels, the decision meant the Club was one of the only Clubs in the International Group (IG) Clubs not to apply a General Increase. A disciplined underwriting approach How do they do it? Edwards believes experience is key "Between myself, Simon [Swallow] and Steve [Randall, CEO of the Club’s Singapore Branch] we have over 100 years of industry experience in the small and specialist vessel sector… we like to think we know what we’re doing!" Whilst steady growth remains a key strategic goal, the Club is committed to doing so without