Interview: insurance brokers Henk Peter Verbree and Martin Peper of NNAM

After Martin finished at a senior shipping college, he sailed until 1990 and then started work as an insurance broker. Together with his former employer, Hans de Boer, he started the predecessor to NNAM. He then took it over in 2006, along with Henk Peter and a former colleague. Henk Peter started his career in 1986 as an engineer with the Dutch Royal Navy. He then ended up in the insurance trade. Under their leadership, the company has grown from eight to its current headcount of twenty.

You are insurance brokers. What does that mean you do for your clients?

“Ninety per cent of our business contacts are shipping companies who want their vessels insured and everything associated with that,” says Martin. “An insurance broker like us represents their interests in the insurance market. We also have lots of business contacts in related areas such as shipyards and their suppliers and so forth, whose risk profiles and insurance needs are different to those of the shipping companies.”

“We negotiate with multiple insurers to get the entire package arranged for them,” explains Henk Peter. “It all depends on precisely what their requirements are. For a typical shipping company, the insurance package will cover protection and indemnity, hull and machinery, war risk, increased value, lost time and insurance for the crew.”

What does NNAM stand out for?

“We handle damage particularly well,” says Henk Peter. “And that’s down to Martin and his team! There are lots of instances of damage, every year. The sums involved are often considerable, too. It’s a highly capital-intensive market and the interests are substantial. Our business contacts trust us in handling these cases and they expect top-class assistance. Which is what they get from us.”

How do you go about that?

“We draw up a claim based on the experts’ reports and the terms and conditions of the insurance policy,” says Martin. “We then try to get the best possible indemnity for our clients, indemnifying them as much as possible. To do that, you have to dive right down into the circumstances and the terms and conditions. It’s certainly not just down to me – our entire team pulls together to get that result.”

“That team includes our purchasers and other specialists too, of course,” adds Henk Peter. “We have twenty staff who are spread across damages, insurance purchasing and policy completion, and on top of that you have the financial administration, the policy writing and compliance. You need several kinds of cover for a single vessel, and some policies involve several insurers, sometimes internationally. We put the whole package together and you need a whole team for that.”

“The care we take is reflected in the long-term relationships we have with our clients,” says Martin. “They stick with us because we look after them well.”

What’s your cooperation with NNPC like? How do you complement each other?

“We’ve always been able to collaborate well,” says Henk Peter. “The lines of communication are short, so we can just pick up the phone or drive round when anything awkward turns up. Our relationship with the management there is strong – a close link that goes back about twenty years. It means you know what you can expect from each other.”

“If there’s a P&I issue, we let the club take the lead. NNPC specializes in liability and their position as a P&I club lets them handle things for the claimant better than us. If it’s a case of damage, though, where the P&I insurance and the hull cover are both affected, then we get involved as well to make sure that all the interests are examined, not just the P&I aspects. We have a checking function in that. NNPC trust us and vice versa – it’s a nicely balanced relationship.”

What challenges are there currently in the maritime sector?

“Our business contacts throughout the world are struggling with very awkward and unstable political situations,” says Henk Peter. “Tensions. You see risks appearing everywhere, whether you’re going to the Black Sea, through the Suez Canal or off to the South China Sea.”

“I’d say that the biggest challenges for the clients are sanctions legislation and piracy,” says Martin. “Attacks by the Houthi and piracy are both serious problems in the Gulf of Aden. So that affects us too.”

“At moments when our clients have to go through areas that are excluded because of a war or a conflict, we can offer them a different type of insurance. Because the situation there is often highly unstable, those are very temporary agreements. Insurers often impose extra requirements on the shipping company, such as a policy for kidnap and ransom, armed guards, barbed wire or sailing in convoys. We help sort out the insurance but the clients then have to ensure for themselves that they comply with those requirements.”

How do you see the Dutch maritime sector? How does the Dutch fleet fit into the market?

“Dutch shipping used largely to be run by skippers who owned the ships,” says Henk Peter. “Those small family companies had a very tough time of it over the past ten years and we’ve lost quite a few of them. The market is becoming more and more consolidated, merging to create larger parties. That means that our clients now have a more professional attitude than roughly ten years ago. Fortunately, we still have a lot of shipping families in our portfolio who have become very professionalized as well. So in general, our business contacts have become more vocal and more risk-conscious, which makes it pleasant to work with them.”

Is that an extra challenge for NNAM?

“It’s customized work every time, which keeps us on our toes,” says Henk Peter. It’s still a very attractive and challenging sector for us, with a market that’s always on the move – very different from home insurance, say, where it gets signed on the dotted line and then fits the bill for thirty years. A shipping company has to buy in the entire package again every twelve months. No sooner have you signed the policy, actually, than you have to start thinking about the next one.”

Finally: do you have a good tip for the NNPC members?

“Get your insurance policy through NNAM at any rate,” laughs Martin. “There aren’t many market players in the Netherlands who do what we do. Like NNPC, we offer personal contact with our clients. We know you. We don’t need you to quote the policy number when you ring us – we know who we’re talking to.”

“That’s the added value we offer,” agrees Henk Peter. “A strong local base!”