Insurers refuse to cover US, UK, and Israeli ships transiting Red Sea
Western trade woes continue to mount over the military action taken by Yemen in support of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza
Insurance companies are increasingly refusing to provide war risk coverage to US, UK, and Israeli vessels in the Red Sea over the ongoing military operations by the Yemeni armed forces in support of Gaza.
“Some insurers are no longer willing to underwrite war-risk insurance for vessels with ownership or involvement with the US, UK, or Israel traveling through the Red Sea,” Marcus Baker, an official from the insurance brokerage and risk advisory unit of Marsh McLennan, told CNN on 17 January.
Baker added that the insurance market is “tightening,” and rates for western vessels “could continue to surge.”
Rates for war-risk insurance have spiked from just 0.01 percent of vessel value in early December to 0.7 percent as of mid-January. “That means the cost to insure a $100 million container ship has spiked from $10,000 per voyage to $700,000 today,” CNN reports.
The Ansarallah-led Yemeni government in Sanaa has maintained that any commercial vessel linked to Israel that tries to transit via the Bab al-Mandab Strait will be considered a legitimate military target until the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza stops. The warning was recently extended to include US and UK ships after the two western powers began conducting airstrikes inside the war-torn nation.
On Wednesday, the spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, announced an attack on the US-owned Genco Picardy bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden. He also reiterated warnings that Sanaa “will not hesitate to target all sources of threat in the Arabian and Red Sea, within the legitimate right of defending Yemen and supporting the oppressed Palestinian people.”
Earlier in the week, Yemeni missiles hit a US-owned and operated cargo ship in the Red Sea.
Yemen's pro-Palestine actions forced Israeli-linked vessels to avoid the Red Sea altogether, forcing them to take the more costly shipping route around the Horn of Africa.
However, most commercial vessels have now been forced to follow suit after the US ordered shipping companies to temporarily avoid the key maritime trade route linking Europe to Asia.