Improved safety at sea for all

In its mission to reduce accidents, improve safety, save lives and protect the environment, The Swedish Club can draw on a vast amount of knowledge, experience and statistics from previous claims incidents. Interpreting and communicating that valuable knowledge to both members and to the wider shipping community is a vital part of its loss prevention programme.

“As a mutual organisation we are owned and run by our members, and as such our primary aim is to share the claims data and information that we have with our members, to help them to train their seafarers to improve safety and reduce risk,” explains Joakim Enström, Senior Loss Prevention Officer at The Swedish Club. “However, we believe that we have a wider responsibility to shipping in general, and as such, we have a mission to contribute to enhanced safety at sea.  This we do in a tangible way by sharing our loss prevention expertise outside of our member body, in the form of case studies, webinars and loss prevention publications.

The main loss prevention issues fall in to four areas: Navigational claims, cargo claims, people claims and machinery damage. If our efforts prevent only one serious casualty, then that is money well spent. We want to help you make a difference.

Case studies

The Swedish Club has long earned a reputation for the quality of its cases. Published online, included in loss prevention publications and widely reproduced in the maritime press, feedback from ship operators has always been positive.

A great deal of work does in fact, go into these deceptively simple one or two pages of copy. As Enström explains: “The Club’s loss prevention team sifts through thousands of surveyors’ reports, often themselves hundreds of pages long, to identify those incidents which are the best examples of some of the more common situations faced on board. We are looking for those which will provide crews with the most opportunity for reflection and learning.”

Once identified, they are then summarised and rewritten in language which is easily accessible to all nationalities and in a format which can be used in monthly safety training meetings. “It is important that the incidents we choose are seen as directly to relevant to an individual’s own experiences,” says Enström. “This way, when the case studies are used in training, the seafarer can identify with the problems faced, and some of the difficult decisions that those on board have had to make. When debating the case study with their crew colleagues, the reality of the situations makes discussions more relevant, and learning outcomes more likely to applied should they themselves face a similar situation.”

The Swedish Club has pulled together its most interesting case studies, and published The Swedish Club Casebook, a portfolio of case studies covering some of the most common incidents seen by the Club. These include incidents concerning cargo, pollution, heavy weather, fire, injury, groundings, collision and machinery failure to name but a few.

Constantly updated, The Swedish Club Casebook is available online and can be downloaded at https://www.swedishclub.com/loss-prevention/cases/case-studies/. Adds Enström: “We will continue to add interesting and relevant new cases as they present themselves to us, and we are considering the option of making hard copies available to members for use on board ship.”

Webinars

As with many online initiatives, The Swedish Club’s programme of webinars was conceived in the early days of COVID. The world’s seafarers continued to work and keep world trade moving, and yet the channels to share what could be life-saving advice were becoming limited. The Club set up a recording studio in its Gothenburg headquarters and developed a programme of webinars providing support and advice to members and delegates around the world. Experts were invited from partner organisations and varied topics included sanctions, AI, engine damage and preventing cyber attack. The programme has grown in popularity and the Club now continues to deliver loss prevention advice through this route. Visitors to The Swedish Club website, https://www.swedishclub.com/training/webinars can access the full portfolio of past webinars and explore the upcoming programme for 2023.

Loss prevention publications

The Club’s  position as the All-in-One pioneer is extremely relevant to its loss prevention activities: “This leading position  has enabled us to develop comprehensive and broad-based experience and expertise of complex claims spanning the many classes of insurance provided by the Club,” explains Mr Enström. “From this experience we have obtained very comprehensive statistics that help us to make the connections needed to offer practical and realistic loss prevention advice.”

He points out, however, that loss prevention isn’t just about statistics. “We like to make a difference,” he said.  “Our loss prevention initiatives are designed to add value to our members in their efforts to reduce the number of claims. They are easy to implement in the daily operations of our members and focus on providing concrete hands-on advice.”

This advice is shared through the Club’s portfolio of Loss Prevention publications, providing information and advice on the issues that are of most concern to Club members, and which result in high frequency or high value claims – and indeed those claims that are most easily avoided through best practice. The Club has recently published Container Claims – Refrigerated Containers, which highlights the important role of the crew in ensuring that these fragile cargoes are delivered safely, and how the actions of those on board can make a significant difference to the claims experienced by an operator.

The full portfolio of Loss Prevention publications can be found at https://www.swedishclub.com/films-and-publications/publications/loss-prevention-and-brochures/

The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.