TT Club: ‘Embrace tech and save lives’

Speaking at TOC Asia, Laurence Jones, director of global risk assessment for the specialist insurer, said the container industry is still “10-20 years behind other industries at utilising technology. Please use it and save lives and money,” he urged.

Mr Jones made the statement in reference to statistics produced by TT Club that list wharf crane incidents as its top insurance claim category.

Within this category, ‘Boom to ship collision’ accounts for the largest percentage of claims by cost at 27% over 2013-2017.

While there are a number of technologies available to prevent those types of incidents, they are not widely used in the market.

“The technology is there but it is not being used,” said Mr Jones. “Why is that? Do terminals think that their insurance will cover everything? Do they think these accidents will not happen to them? If so, they are wrong in both cases.”

He stressed that available technologies – including boom and travel anti-collision sensors, stack profiling, and twistlock load sensing – are all economically viable when costs, delays and injuries are factored in.