ABSTRACT

It is in one sense surprising that “war” has been expressed as an insured peril only since the MAR Form was introduced in 1983. It is, therefore, a new peril to the War Risks Policy. The new forms have done away with the need to consider the myriad cases seeking to delineate the meanings of “hostilities” and “warlike operations”, many of which did not speak with the same voice. Even as recently as the Second World War, wars were undertaken on a far more formal basis than is common today. Each side would line up, issue ultimata, reject or ignore them, and at a well-defined time start fighting one another. During the 1982 Falklands War, British ships in Argentine ports were not interned, but were merely ordered to leave. British soldiers taken prisoner in the early engagements were not interned but were sent home. Outside the narrow area of some ferocious fighting, everything was peaceful.