Digitalisation is making significant inroads into many aspects of global shipping and marine insurance must be ready to embrace this change if it is to reap the associated benefits, IUMI warns.
This was a topic of discussion at this year’s International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) conference in Edinburgh Scotland. As Patrizia Kern-Ferretti, Chair of IUMI’s Big Data and Digitalisation Forum, explained, efficient marine insurance relies heavily on the availability of good-quality data.
Fully digitalising bills of lading gives the potential for underwriters to access behavioural data coupled with predictive opportunities arising from AI. In short, the more data they can access, the more analysis and insights they can gather and this will translate into better pricing, overall management, claims handling and loss prevention
It’s gratifying to see our industry continue to adopt the digitalisation process but there is concern that we might be moving too slowly. Today, we heard from the Digital Container Shipping Association on its progress to implement fully electronic bills of lading.
… said Patrizia Kern-Ferretti
Bills of lading (BL) provide for receipt of goods, evidence of a contract of carriage, and document of title and are used prolifically throughout the global supply chain. Delegates heard how the Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) – a non-profit association – is working to transform paper-based original BLs into data flow based on DCSA standards.
Its members, who represent 70% of global container trade, have committed to issue 50% of their BLs digitally within five years and 100% by 2030. This would mark a significant change in how business is currently conducted, IUMI notes.
The benefits are estimated to be enormous with efficiency savings alone running into many billions of dollars.
Benefiting the entire supply chain, digitalisation has the potential to streamline that process adding efficiency, reducing errors and saving cost. But the big question is, “how will the marine insurance industry capture the value of digitalisation, not just for its own benefit but also for the benefit of the assureds?”
… concluded Patrizia Kern-Ferretti
To remind, a consortium of industry and technical leaders, supported by government, business, and other major organizations, has successfully executed the world’s first entirely digitalised cross-border movement of goods.
A few days ago, the Electronic Trade Documents Act came into force in the United Kingdom, giving legal recognition in English law to electronic trade documents, including electronic bills of lading.
