FreightWaves explores the archives of American Shipper’s nearly 70-year-old collection of shipping and maritime publications to showcase interesting freight stories of long ago.
In this week’s edition from the November 1980 issue, FreightWaves looks at shocking anecdotes from an insurance underwriter in the maritime industry.
Bizarre claims
Hitchhiking corpses; crushed legs; missing, rifled, smashed, bent, stolen, contaminated, and burnt containers — they’re everyday facts of life for Through Transport Mutual Insurance Association Ltd. The Bermuda-based firm is one of the world’s largest specialist marine underwriters for the container industry, and those represent just some of the mishaps and misdeeds on which the firm paid $6.7 million worth of claims in 1979.
