Deviation

Red Sea, December 2023: after the attacks on shipping, most large carriers rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly 3,500 nautical miles and ten days at sea to the Asia-Europe run. Deviation is that voluntary departure from the agreed route or, failing agreement, from the customary one. Carriage law treats it harshly, because it unilaterally changes a risk the other parties had accepted. Unjustified, it costs the carrier its defenses and, on some readings, its limits. The Hague-Visby Rules allow only two kinds, deviation to save life or property at sea and reasonable deviation, an elastic notion that has fed a great deal of litigation. In insurance, the classical rule ends cover at the moment of deviation, even if the loss comes later and has nothing to do with it. The market finds that too blunt and softens it with a held covered clause, at an additional premium. That is how cargo policies responded in 2024, when Suez Canal traffic fell by more than 60%. The underwriter priced a voyage, and lengthening it changes both how long the cargo is exposed and the perils it runs into.