Subsea infrastructure sabotage
Deliberate damage to a cable or pipeline laid on the seabed, whose uncertain attribution decides whether the war exclusion applies.
On September 26, 2022, explosions damaged three of the four lines of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 in the Baltic Sea, and the investigations of several coastal states did not produce a concordant public attribution in the years that followed. Telecommunication cables and energy pipelines run for thousands of kilometers on the seabed, unguarded, precisely charted in public documents and within reach of submarine equipment that has become commonplace. Deliberate damage to them causes modest physical loss relative to its consequences. Pricing the loss raises few problems; characterizing it raises many. Policies distinguish vandalism, which is covered, terrorism, covered by a specific extension, and the act of a state or foreign power, excluded by the war clause. Yet attributing damage on the seabed is technically very hard and politically constrained, so an investigation can remain inconclusive for years. The insured then sees payment hang on a fact nobody can establish, and the burden of proving the exclusion, which falls on the insurer, decides the file far more than the true origin of the damage.
The explosions of September 26, 2022 on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea damaged three of the four lines. Investigations opened by several coastal states did not produce a concordant public attribution in the years that followed.
- Swedish Prosecution Authority (Åklagarmyndigheten), closure of the Nord Stream investigation, 7 February 2024
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