Newcastle marine insurer reveals major growth and new promotion

Newcastle-headquartered global marine insurer, North P&I Club has announced its annual results.

This includes a 4.6 per cent increase in free reserves to $451m (around £336m); a 2.6 per cent rise in total entered tonnage to 195 million GT; and a combined ratio of 104 per cent for the year ended February 20, 2018, along with a stable 99 per cent member retention rate.

North P&I is based on the quayside, where the business employs 300 people, but also has offices in China (Hong Kong and Shanghai), Greece, Japan and Singapore.

North recently announced that it will open a subsidiary in Dublin following the UK’s decision on membership of the EU.

Meanwhile, as of May 1, Paul Jennings took on the role of chief executive officer at North after Alan Wilson stepped down from his role as joint managing director.

Wilson, who has been at the company for 37 years, will continue as an executive director to support North’s new leadership team.

Jennings said: “2017/18 has been another successful year for North and we take pride in the service we provide to enable our Members to trade with confidence.

“North’s commitment to service excellence was clearly recognised in our triennial Member & Broker Survey conducted in September 2017, which returned a series of exceptional results. We would like to thank our membership for their confidence in North and for their loyalty.”

North’s strategy of controlled growth saw total entered tonnage rise by five million GT to 195 million GT, comprising 142 million GT of owned tonnage and 53 million GT of chartered tonnage.

The majority of this growth has come from existing Members who value the Club’s financial strength and service excellence. This has seen significant new entries from Danish and German Members, as well as new P&I and FD&D Members from Singapore, Japan, Greece and Qatar.

Pratap Shirke, chairman of North P&I Club, added: “In these uncertain trading conditions for global shipping, it is more important than ever that our Members can confidently rely on our support.

“This was clearly demonstrated in our renewal strategy announcement in November 2017, when, for the second consecutive year, we decided to charge no general increase.

“Shipping’s longstanding economic challenges have shown some signs of improvement along with freight rates in certain sectors, but we are yet to see any permanent or long-term improvement.”