ABSTRACT
War risk insurance is highly specialist and the dangers of insuring the consequences of what other people do to ships contain so many imponderable factors, which are less easy to quantify than insurance against marine risks, that the number of underwriters who are willing to undertake such insurance is limited. Moreover the number of underwriters who are willing to "lead" a risk which others will follow is very small indeed. The well-recognised "leaders" are to be found in the London insurance market among the syndicates at Lloyd's, and the insurance companies who are members of the Institute of London Underwriters who are willing to give war risk insurance to merchant ships. Associations are underwriters who consist of the insured shipowners, a characteristic which enables them, provided that they can retain the confidence of the market underwriters who reinsure them, to control the costs of the insurance and the claims which are paid.
