A case study on how to integrate recoveries with surveys from day one in order to improve the speed and the result of recovery, mitigating the portfolio loss ratio.

These days, one stop shops are part of our daily life: Carrefour, where you can buy food, clothes, gardening tools, TVs, dryers etc.; Total, where you can drink a coffee, access free Wifi, fuel up, have your car washed and refill your Adblue; Alibaba platform, where you can compare prices, store data, purchase goods and have it delivered to your house or office.

All to manage and save time, to combine different tasks, to balance out work and family, to make life more comfortable.

We strongly believe that this concept of a one stop shop should also be applied within the process of a marine insurance claim. For example, our surveyor performed a quality control survey, stuffing survey, inland carriage-supervision and load & stow survey on board of a seagoing vessel of 10 reefer containers packed with blueberries to confirm the sound condition of the cargo at the port of loading. Upon stripping at the point of discharge, damages due to delay allegedly caused by bad weather during transit and due to temperature breach were noted.

A joint survey was called for and our legal team was consulted immediately to facilitate a timely letter of protest and a proper P&I Letter of Undertaking, to obtain access to logbooks, crew statements and weather reports, even to impose sharing of container data recordings. This early integration of surveys and recoveries left no room to escape liability for the carrier, resulting in a fair settlement a few months after subrogation.

We are convinced that every claim has a liability aspect and should therefore be investigated on its recovery merits, regardless of the amount at stake. The sooner one starts with that, the better a case can be built for recovery purposes. This process has a clear impact not only on the monetary result of recovery, but also on the speed thereof. Loss ratio will then become a win ratio.