As this blog has mentioned many times, there are new possibilities opening up for arctic trade, and with them should come proper considerations of international marine insurance. Namely: is your company prepared to be doing more business with other countries and in foreign waters.
The International Maritime Organization is working on a plan to govern trade in the Arctic, an area with increasing importance for energy companies. Reuters reports that the so-called Polar Code is an attempt to match this higher level of interest in arctic-area activity, with policies and measures that take regular maneuvers in this area more seriously.
Reuters quotes the Norwegian Shipowners' Association Director General Sturla Henriksen on why this new legislation is important now and what a single unified policy can mean.
"There are no international conventions which regulate Arctic shipping operations, so in principle the same rules apply for sunny sailing in the Mediterranean as for the Arctic," Henriksen said. "It's sparsely populated and it's far from basic infrastructure."
Apparently, this Code would streamline the approach needed to keep the peace in the area, especially as there are multiple ways into the arctic. The Globe and Mail reports that both Russia and Canada have passages of travel that might prove useful for this effort, and the code might dictate the ways you maintain other aspects of the ship.
Because of this, the conditions surrounding the maritime insurance policies your crew depends on could change as new routes and procedures open up. To account for this, companies need to take a hard look at the insurance companies they work with to decide whether or not their coverage is sufficient.