Claims seen as a shortcut to treasure
In 1982, the marine insurance business was estimating losses that year to come in at £1 billion just from marine fraud - and on top of all the legitimate claims for sunken ships and lost cargoes.
Welcome to the sometimes nightmare world of the marine insurer. According to that 1982 report in The Times, Lloyd's of London was fretting over the sharply rising claims resulting from the then worldwide recession in the shipping business, it apparently being more economic to send a vessel to "Davy Jones's locker" and collect the insurance than to crew, fuel and berth her.
Many lines were inventing non-existent cargoes that then went missing, including one £76m claim paid out in Iran. Good old theft was also rampant: The Times said around the world "whole ship-loads of cargo have disappeared with the connivance of the shipowners".
In 1980 Lloyd's and the London market faced the biggest shipping loss in history (until then) as the result of the scrapping of three gas tankers then under construction in the US. The liquefied natural gas tankers were being built in New Orleans when, just before completion, serious structural defects were found. A settlement of £300m was made; that was three times what the same insurers had to pay out the previous when the super tankers Aegean Captain and Atlantic Empress collided off Tobago.
And, as if to rub salt in their wounds, insurance companies lost a 1990 Norfolk, Virginia court case. London Assurance and four other British marine insurers had paid out claims in 1857 when the SS Central America went down off the South Caroline coast with 400 people. In 1988 treasure hunters found the wreck and recovered large quantities of gold bars and gold coins. The insurers felt they were owed a part of the treasure as they had paid out 131 years previously. The judge thought differently, finding the companies had abandoned the gold because they did not search for it at the time.
Marine insurers might not strike one as life's likely victims, but when they have to pay out it is often an eye-watering amount.