ABSTRACT
3.1 No book about marine insurance is complete if it does not say something about the position of brokers. Wherever ships or cargoes are insured, intermediaries, whether singly or in combination, are almost certain to be involved in the process. Furthermore, as any lawyer who regularly acts for insured parties will confirm, their liability may be crucial. Where any awkward questions arise as to the validity or extent of coverage, it is almost universal practice to train one barrel on the underwriters and the other on the brokers. If the policy is valid and the underwriters are liable on a proper interpretation of it, well and good; but in case the policy does not serve, the assured’s immediate reaction will be to turn his attention to the brokers and argue they must have been at fault in setting it up. Oddly enough, however, there is often a curious imbalance in the coverage of the legal status of intermediaries in this connection. While issues of their substantive liability are in most cases fairly thoroughly covered in this connection, 1 the same cannot be said of the measure of damages available if negligence is shown. This subject tends to be dismissed in a fairly uninformative page or two, 2 as if it were merely an afterthought and there was really rather little to say about it. This is a pity, since in all litigation the measure of recovery is crucial (at least for the client), and furthermore, in much litigation against brokers the amount recoverable is by no means straightforward.
