Following the Tianjin disaster how is the accumulation of risks in ports and cat modelling developing?

Abstract

According to the IUMI1, the continuous containerization of the world economy hasresulted in the construction of container ships of greater size, as well as theconstruction of extensive cargo handling and storage facilities; this developmentcreated new challenges from an insurance and value accumulation perspective, as ithas exposed highly industrialized regions like ports in large-scale risks both in thecases of natural hazards and human errors. As it can be seen from the case of the man made Tianjin disaster, the cost creep was due to increased value estimates of affectedassets, plus contamination and cleanup-related expenses that were not included inearlier tallies. Claims related to the massive explosion at the port of Tianjin, Chinaoccurred in August 2015 may grow to as much as 6 billion dollars, says the InternationalUnion of Marine Insurance. More than half of the claims reportedly fall within marineinsurance or reinsurance lines – potentially making it the largest single marine disaster(by claim value) in history, surpassing Hurricane Sandy.

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