A collision between two ships, whose liability is split between the hull policy, for three quarters, and the protection and indemnity club for the balance.
Collision between vessels refers to two ships striking each other, as opposed to contact with a fixed object such as a quay, a lock or a platform, which both the vocabulary and the policies treat separately. Liability is apportioned in proportion to the respective faults under the 1910 Brussels convention, widely followed, which means establishing each side's breaches of the steering and sailing rules. In insurance, the striking feature is the historical split of cover: the hull policy traditionally takes three quarters of collision liability through its running down clause, the remaining quarter falling to the protection and indemnity club, as does the whole of fixed object contact. A both to blame clause, inserted in bills of lading, seeks to restore between the parties the balance that certain national laws, including that of the United States, had upset by limiting cross claims. The problem this split solves is preventing a single underwriter from carrying an effectively unlimited liability exposure alongside a damage cover capped by the value of the ship.
The collision between the container ship ACX Crystal and the American destroyer USS Fitzgerald off Yokosuka on June 17, 2017 cost seven sailors their lives and more than 300 million dollars in repairs; the Japanese and American investigations found failures of lookout and steering on both sides, the typical pattern for an apportionment of fault.
collision maritime, running down clause