‘$4B insure toll’ in bridge wreck
‘Largest-ever’ marine payout eyed
The collapse of Batimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge could cost as much as $4 billion in claims — the largest marine insurance payout in history, analysts said.
Morningstar DBRS analysts estimated that the insured losses caused by the Dali cargo ship crash that has also shut down the bustling Port of Baltimore could total between $2 billion and $4 billion.
“We’re beginning to deploy resources in anticipation of this being a very substantial claim for the industry,” Lloyd’s of London Chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.
“It feels like a very substantial loss, potentially the largest-ever marine insured loss, but not outside parameters that we plan for,” he added.
Morningstar noted that total cost will depend on how long the port is blocked, with the US Coast Guard working to free the Singapore-flagged cargo ship from the Patapsco River as quickly as possible.
The Port of Baltimore, the country’s 11th biggest, is the nation’s leading import and export site for cars, light trucks and sugar, with a record 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo worth $80 billion transported through its facilities last year.
“A lot of business is going to be interrupted, supply chains are going to be interrupted by ships that are both trapped inside the port and of course, ships that were trying to gain access to the port that no longer can, and those secondorder effects will take some time to work through,” Carnegie-Brown said.
Along with the interruption to the port’s business, various insurance policies are expected to be triggered over liability, the Dali’s cargo and the overall property damage.
Six construction workers who were on break after filling potholes in the bridge are presumed dead as a result of the collapse.
With Barclays putting the potential insurance payout between $1 billion and $3 billion, the fallout from the Baltimore crash is expected to dwarf the record payout from when the Costa Concordia cruise ship capsized in 2012, which resulted in a $1.5 billion payout.
Lloyd’s reported a 2023 pretax profit of $13.49 billion Thursday.