The Carnival cruiseship group is to quit the protection-and-indemnity (P&I) club that handled the response to the Costa Concordia disaster in the first major upset of the renewal season.

Carnival has rejected the Standard Club’s renewal terms and is to move more than four million gross tons (gt), half its total fleet, to Gard and the UK Club.

The biggest of the cruise shipping groups has a reputation for being commercially aggressive but the decision to leave the Standard Club, which handled the $1.5bn