The Iran war has effectively closed a key global energy shipping lane, and the resulting logjam is causing major headaches for companies responsible for transporting oil and gas from the Middle East to global markets. For shipping companies hoping to tap their insurance policies to cover any war-related losses, the first step is to file a notice of claim, which can also start the clock on calculating losses.
Bracewell’s Carlton Wilde told Law360 most policies have 30- or 60-day deadlines to file claim notices.
“If right now I was in-house counsel [of a company] that had a bunch of ships floating around, I would want to go pull my notice provisions of every single policy,” Wilde said. “If your clock’s already running, you know you don’t want to be missing that deadline. Whether you can forfeit coverage or not, it’s going to depend on a lot of different jurisdictions and how missing that notice time is interpreted.”
