Anthony Firmin takes over the chairmanship of Britannia P&I at a time of change for one of the world’s largest protection and indemnity insurers.
The board has just told members that when it comes to deciding premiums, the starting point will be a rating of individual members’ record.
That will replace the decades-old tradition of a uniform rating for the whole membership, known as a general increase, followed by talks about individual performance.
It could leave some members facing higher increases than they might otherwise have expected, depending on their claims record last year.
Firmin’s role is to act as a mediator between the needs of shipowner members and the management board that runs the club. But he told TradeWinds he is not expecting much opposition to the decision.
More sophisticated
He said more sophisticated risk-assessment tools have made the general increase obsolete.
“Of course you want the club to be financially secure, and the general increase was always the start of discussions. But in today’s world I think it makes sense to change and discuss with individual members what the position should be,” he said.
Firmin is well regarded in the shipping industry. A British national raised in Germany, he joined Hamburg-based Hapag-Lloyd in 1995 as a finance director. He became chief operating officer in 2014 and helped maintain the company as a leading player during a difficult time for the containership industry, before retiring in June this year.
Rate negotiations ahead of the P&I policy renewal next February might be difficult, even for a wealthy club like Britannia.
Although its financial reserves are well in excess of the requirements of the financial regulator, it is under pressure to stem underwriting losses.
Despite the difficult markets many Britannia members are operating in, Firmin is still ready to back higher P&I rates.
“We’ve gone many years without an increase in premiums now and it is time to rebalance the situation from the membership,” he said.
He believes it is not only his financial skills that will come into play in his role as chairman; his planning and business development skills could also come in handy.
The way Britannia is now developing is in tune with the way Hapag-Lloyd modernised itself, Firmin said.
The club has been setting up independent outposts in key shipping centres to globalise the business.
“What Britannia are doing now is very much in line with what Hapag-Lloyd did in taking over overseas subsidiaries and agents and investing in the organisation and IT,” he said.
