Average adjuster

On March 6, 2018, the Maersk Honam catches fire in the Arabian Sea with several thousand containers aboard, and her owner declares general average. A few days later each shipper receives a letter saying it will have to contribute, without knowing how much. The calculation falls to the average adjuster. In France, the adjuster is chosen by the parties or appointed by the commercial court; in the United Kingdom, an average adjuster is often a member of the Association of Average Adjusters, founded in London in 1869. The work runs in two columns. On one side, the allowable sacrifices and expenses, which the York-Antwerp Rules list: cargo jettisoned, towage, port of refuge and salvage costs, lost freight. On the other, the contributory values: ship, cargoes and freight, valued on arrival or where the voyage ended. The total allowed is shared out in proportion to those values. The adjustment can take a long time to arrive, one to three years in big cases, because surveys, invoices and cargo values from thousands of bills of lading are needed. It binds those who agreed to be bound, and in France it can be homologated by the court. For the cargo insurer, it fixes the sum its insured owes for general average, which is covered, and which the insured pays before being reimbursed the balance.