ABSTRACT
In recent decades, piracy has alternated between being treated as an insured peril under the standard marine policies (alongside perils of the sea and other maritime risks) and under war risks policies (with political risks). At present, piracy is by default located within maritime risks (under the Institute Times Clauses Hulls (1982) and other standard Hull & Machinery policies) but is commonly excluded by contract variation and insured within war risks cover. Piracy as a peril has been the subject of careful judicial scrutiny, as its precise limits differ from those in other legal contexts. Moreover, its relationship to other perils, such as violent theft, barratry, terrorism, seizure, and capture will be important in policies which do not treat each of these risks equally. In many of the pre-twentieth-century cases, piracy as an insured peril was assumed to be limited to events on the high seas.
