AbstractsLaw & Legal Studies

The “charterer’s liability insurance” is a type of marine insurance. Most ships are chartered either on a time charter or voyage charter contract. In both cases the charterer assumes liabilities towards the shipowner because of damage caused to the ship in the course of cargo-handling or because of damage resulting from an unsafe port or berth. And also, the charterer becomes liable similarly to the shipowner, with P&I liability to cargo, pollution claims and etc. All charterers require cover for both damage to hull and other P&I liabilities. The so-called “charterer’s liability insurance” provides coverage for such risks. I choose charterer’s liability insurance as the topic mostly because of the fast development of chartering ships in the market and the large number of disputes arising thereof. During my research, I found that there might be disputes arising out of the charter party, most of which is in relation to the damage to ships and general average after the casualties. The disputes become a major problem facing the charterer if he does not have a charterer’s liability insurance policy or he did not rightly enter such a policy. Moreover, the disputes may hinder the development of shipping market. In international P&I associations like Sculd and Gard, quite a number of vessels are enterers on the basis of charterer’s entry. To better understand this particular type of insurance and to discover certain practical problems about it, I will discuss sup-topics in the following chapters: Legal Sources (chapter 2), Charterer’s Risks (chapter 3), Overview of Charterer’s Liability Insurance Policy (chapter 4), Liability Cover (chapter 5), General Average Cover (chapter 6), Legal Expenses Cover (chapter 7) and Exclusions and Limitations of Coverage (chapter 8). For this mission, this thesis will adopt the comparative method by comparing the legislation and P&I Association rules of China, Norway and England, and by referring to different charter parties, different charterer’s liability insurance policies and several cases. The differences in relation to charterer’s liability insurance such as the legal framework, the cover of risks insured and limitation of risk between countries can be found anywhere especially when you are trying to make them clear by comparing eastern laws like China with western systems like Norway and U.K. However the situation is changing with the globalization.