Other mutual insurance. A mutual protection is no longer exclusive to shipowners. Other cover for liability can be mutual, for example, for professional negligence by shipowners or the liability of freight forwarders.
Special mutual associations exist for these and for many other persons in the industry. Some categories of risk may be covered by entirely separate mutual association. Protection and indemnity is one type of mutual association. Others include: Hull and machinery; Freight, defence and demurrage; War risk; Strikes; Through transport connected risks.
“Few owners except the very rich or the bankrupt would consider operating without adequate P. & I. cover.” Such was how one senior P. & I. executive summed up the penetration of the P. & I. cover throughout the shipowning community. The cover that the clubs provide is comprehensive, flexible and reasonably priced, but it is not necessarily true that an owner would at all times turn to the clubs for all his insurance needs, save hull and machinery. The fixed premium markets can often be very responsive, particularly to novel risks. P. & I. cover, on the other hand,-is there to afford the members of the club a protection against the sorts of liabilities that they encounter in the normal course of their business.
