Autonomous ships raise insurance concerns

The operation of unmanned ships is raising a number of questions for vessel insurance companies.

Autonomous shipping remains in its infancy. But Muge Anber-Kontakis, an attorney at marine insurer American P&I Club, said early adopters will need to address a set of unique considerations.

For example, an autonomous vessel has nobody on board to respond in person if the vessel break downs, Anber-Kontakis said at 25th Annual Hellenic-American/Norwegian-American Chambers of Commerce Joint Shipping Conference in New York yesterday. The lack of a crew could also raise additional risks of cargo theft, since there would be no crew to intervene in an incident. That raises a question of how cargo liability insurance rates will be affected.

And because the unmanned vessels will be operated in seas traversed by manned vessels too, they still will be subject to human error. While the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has rules governing seafarers that run conventional vessels, the group still has to decide if autonomous vessels will be governed by the same rules.

The vessels could also be particularly vulnerable to cyber attacks.

But Anber-Kontakis also sees a couple of advantages to autonomous vessels from an insurance standpoint.

About 25-35pc of the marine insurance claims American P&I Club receives per year are for crew injuries, illness or death. An unmanned vessel will eliminate these claims. Separately, in a pirate attack, there is no crew to use as a leverage for ransom.

Pia Meling, vice president of Massterly, an autonomous shipping joint venture by Norwegian shipping companies Wilhelmson and Kongsberg, said cyber issues should not necessarily be a particular worry for unmanned ship operations.

Built from scratch, autonomous operating ships are more cyber secure than conventional vessels, she said. If there is a loss of communication between the shore and the vessel, the vessel will be programmed to go into a "safe mode", which means it would drop an anchor or proceed to the nearest port, Meling said.