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Reviewed by Alan Cameron.
The following book review on "MUTUALITY" appeared in the Lloyd's List on 13 January 1996.
This official history commissioned by the UK P&I Club to mark its 125th anniversary is very far from being a complacent navel-gazing exercise. As the chairman of the club says in his foreword, an objective history by an independent historian, "more than a parochial history" was the brief. It is a compliment to Peter Young to say that one often forgets one is reading an official history of a P&I club, so absorbing is the maritime and marine insurance history recounted.
Apart from that, P&I clubs and their role in the world of mercantile business and commerce have been a fascinating aspect of western history ever since Shylock demanded of Antonio "What news on the Rialto?" For it is "the P&I clubs, the 16 marine liability insurers, who together insure 95% of the world's ocean going ships". It is the P&I clubs that handle and pay for the major casualties. The UK P&I club, formed in London in 1869, grew to be a global insurer of marine liabilities and it is this growth which the book chronicles in a beautifully produced and illustrated volume.
The illustrations alone are attention-grabbing.
Page 9: the Thames with St Paul's in the background; foreground, a Thames sailing barge afloat at the south bank with a horse and cart going alongside to discharge cargo. Yes, "alongside", up to the cart's axles in water.
And how is this for a throwaway caption: "Claims executive Ursula Hanford seen here with a Russian icebreaker at the North Pole ..." (Most people are content to take the dog for a walk.)
And what is a picture of an owl doing in a book on marine insurance? The usual reason - money. "... valued the northern spotted owl, an endangered species, at $90m per breeding pair." So an oil spillage in their neighbourhood can get mighty expensive.
The text too, in the course of its excellent official chronicling job, is full of similar intriguing anecdotes and episodes - the burning of the Lakonia, the loss of the Torrey Canyon in 1967, the San Demetrio, London, saga of 1943, the oldest ship in the club, the full-rigged ship Belem, once the Duke of Westminster's yacht, now a French training ship. As Shakespeare showed nearly 400 years ago, marine insurance is not just dull paper pushing. In fact, as Portia showed, push it the right way and you can dram atically save your client's life! This is one of the few really good official histories I have encountered in 30 years of reviewing.'
(c) of Lloyd's of London Press Limited 1996. LLOYD'S LIST
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