MARINE INSURANCE

Introduction: Marine insurance is an important component of international trade and

commerce and subject to international regulations in every stage of operations. It is governed
by the marine insurance Act, 1963 in India and guided by the various clauses formulated by
the Institute of London, underwriters and the commercial terms known as Incoterms. The
principles relating to the marine insurance are to be found in the provisions of the Marine
Insurance Act of 1963, which defines that A contract of marine insurance is an agreement
whereby the insurer undertakes to indemnify the assured, in the manner and to the extent
thereby agreed, against marine losses, that is to say, the losses incidental to marine
adventure.

Abstract: It is a rental agreement

The first part of my dissertation looks at the chartering of a ship. In simplest

terms, it is a rental agreement in which a charterer agrees to hire a ship from its
owner. Typically it is the charterer who will be the owner of the cargo, which he
needs to move to some other part of the world, and unless he has ships of his
own, he will depend on others to move the cargo for him. The hire money for this
transaction is known as freight and is the reward to the ship owner for the use
of his vessel. The history of chartering goes back to the ancient ages. It evolved
until it reached its present state, that offers us a variety of agreements and
contracts of affreightment. Basic features of marine chartering are the charter-
party and bill of lading. The second part of my dissertation looks at the concept
of marine insurance that is at least as old as Aristotle and by the time of the
Roman Empire, was well developed, with both ships and their cargoes covered by
an insurance market in which the principles of risk and its laying off were well
understood. In its modern form, we might consider the example of the Lloyds
market, where ship owners and merchants met and the latter would undertake
the former in the event of a marine loss and underwrite their signatures at the
bottom of an insurance policy. These days marine insurance may offer a variety
of types of insurance with diverse policies and its practice demands special
attention