Analysis of insurance claims
With over 400 ports and terminals globally, the TT Club is one of the best-placed insurers to have data to analyze and provide advice on claim trends and loss prevention actions. Laurence Jones, the Director Global Risk Assessment for the TT Club, says the Club has analysed over 2,000 asset damage claims over the last four years. According to the report, the main causes of incidents highlighted in previous studies have not changed.
Operational related or human factor incidents are still the largest cause of claims. This is not surprising, however the cost of these operational type incidents is reducing. It appears terminals may be taking note of previous loss prevention recommendations. Many terminals have now installed electronic sensors to prevent quay crane boom-to-ship collisions, instituted one-way traffic flows and have banned pedestrians to reduce collisions. What are increasing, though, are weather related claims – mainly related to quay cranes damaged by wind. Many of these claims could have been mitigated by better crane tie-down procedures and equipment. The data used for this analysis is based on all asset claims and includes equipment, infrastructure and ship damage. It does not include liability or bodily injury claims, however many such claims are the result of the asset incidents.
Claim cause types
When analysing claims, they can be categorised into four highlevel cause types:
• Operational – due to operational human factors or errors
• Maintenance – due to equipment f ailures and other maintenance issues
• Other – outside the direct control of the terminal (e.g. load in container shifted)
• Weather – due to severe weather conditions
Operational issues are the cause of 79 per cent of claims numbers, and 45 per cent of claim costs (costs were 67 per cent in previous three years). Maintenance issues are the cause of 16 per cent of asset claim numbers and 26 per cent of costs. Weatherissues cause four per cent of the number of asset claims, and 29 per cent of the costs (costs were 11 per cent in previous three years, but a number of large claims in 2008 have increased this percentage). Other cause types account for one per cent of numbers and zero per cent of cost. These cause types are analysed further to find the root causes.
Operational related claims
When the operational related claims are analysed, it identifies which people or areas of the operation are involved in theincidents. Figure 2 demonstrates straddle carrier and quay crane accidents as the costliest operational related claims. Across all types of equipment, collision is the most significant problem. (To clarify terminologies which are often different globally, throughout this paper, ‘quay crane’ refers to all cranes on the quay or wharf, including container cranes, bulk loaders and unloaders, mobile harbour cranes and all cranes that operate at the waters edge.)
Loss prevention focus:
• Continuous safety awareness training
• Enhanced focus on driver training (especially for straddle and quay crane drivers). Simulators are now cheaper and being used more extensively
• One-way traffic flows and better lane markings
• Site induction procedures for all employees and visitors to ensure they know safety procedures
• A safe area for truckers to operate twist-locks
• A new twist-lock load sensing system can prevent many spreader accidents (see http://www.lemantec.com)
• Anti-collision devices (lasers, radars or other sensors on equipment to detect objects in their travel path)
• Speed limiting (for all vehicles and especially straddle carriers)
• Cameras (if people know they are being monitored their behaviour is often altered)
• Automation can reduce operational incidents
