Blue Cards (Editorial 6th january 2010)

Useful progress has been made recently in the international standardization of evidencing Club cover as required by the IMO's international liability compensation regimes.

At its meeting in November last year the Legal Committee of the IMO endorsed the recommendation of its Correspondence Group that all state parties to CLC and the Bunkers Convention should accept blue cards in a common electronic format, the Adobe pdf.

Providing relevant authorities with the ability to verify Blue Card information was an important part of achieving more widespread acceptance of this documentation. The Club's database of entered ships - "Ship Finder"- is therefore publicly available on our home page. The database is updated daily to ensure accuracy. In common with other group clubs updated versions of the database are also provided to the EU facility Equasis ( www.equasis.org) on a monthly basis.

Members can view and download their current Blue Cards at any time via the Members' Area of this website *. Simply click on the Member login button at the head of this page and once logged in select Underwriting Online and then Policy Documentation.

A detailed update on these developments can be found in the Club circular 24/10 “Compulsory Insurance – Blue Cards” in the Publications section of this website.*

Members who have not previously accessed online documentation or claims records can register a user ID and password by clicking on the Members Area button at the head of this webpage and then clicking on "P&I Online Services Register" at the top right of the Members Area page. If you have any difficulty with registering or logging on to the Members Area please contact Nick Whitear (

) or Jenny Whitehead (

)

• IMO summary of Legal Committee meeting http://www.imo.org/MediaCentre/MeetingSummaries/Legal/Pages/LEG-97th-Session.aspx