Full Capacity: No end in sight for Middle East shipping woes

August 22 2026 by

Welcome to Full Capacity, a weekly briefing on all the most important developments of the past week with a personal take on the news from our editor-in-chief, Mithun Varkey, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.    

IAN exclusives. Aon has appointed Marsh’s chief executive for Southeast Asia and Singapore Godelieve van Dooren to lead the broker’s Southeast Asia operations, filling in for Andrew Minnitt, who left Aon earlier this year. 

In another exclusive, IAN reported that David Chiu, head of financial lines and middle market at Zurich Insurance in Hong Kong, is set to leave. He is tipped to join QBE. 

Steady deal. A bidder consortium of Amwins, Dragoneer Investment Group, and KKR has struck a binding agreement to acquire Australian broker Steadfast Group in an all-cash deal valued at US$5.5 billion.  

Following the implementation of the scheme, Amwins will acquire Steadfast’s underwriting agency business, while Dragoneer and KKR will retain ownership of the broking business. 

Nat cat update. Following last month’s Kumamoto earthquake, Japanese insurers have received 40,291 claims, according to the General Insurance Association of Japan. Businesses in the commercial and industrial sectors in Kumamoto have suffered losses totalling JPY117.6 billion (US$736.2 million) across 4,398 cases. 

While it has been a quiet week on the nat cat front in the region, the (re)insurance industry has been left counting the cost of cascading disasters across Asia – from an earthquake in Indonesia to unprecedented downpours in Japan, record floods in South Korea, and Typhoon Dolphin hitting China.  

We spoke to loss adjusters on the ground to bring you real-time insights into what the impact all these events have had on the industry, which as the story points out, was left largely unscathed, exposing the region’s gaping protection gap. 

Government backstop. The Japanese government plans to introduce a bill in the autumn to offer state-backed reinsurance for crude oil shipments, aiming to secure energy supplies amid prolonged Middle East instability. The system would cover tankers unable to obtain commercial insurance. 

M&A spotlight. This week saw two notable US acquisitions. First, Willis Re bought the US divisions of BMS Re – including BMS Intermediaries and BMS Capital Advisory – alongside its London team. 

The deal is part of Willis Re’s broader push to rapidly scale its global operations, which now includes Asia after it hired Richard Jones earlier this year.  

Separately, Munich Re acquired US SME-focused cyber insurer At-Bay for US$575 million. 

What sets this deal apart is Munich Re’s strategic move into “InsurSec”, a bundled offering that merges cyber insurance with proactive cybersecurity services into a single integrated solution.

Not so Strait 

The 60-day US-Iran framework to negotiate an end to the conflict expired this week with a whimper.  

Nobody is extending it, nobody is pretending to, and the deadlock in the Strait of Hormuz is continuing, in fact, escalating. 

This was never going to be a quick fix. It is now clearly going to be a long one. The evidence is stacking up.  

Commercial vessels are being struck by projectiles. ADNOC tankers – from the UAE’s state-owned fleet – have been repeatedly targeted.  

On Tuesday, Abu Dhabi suspended trade with Tehran altogether, accusing it of firing two ballistic missiles at maritime traffic.  

As already mentioned, earlier this week reports said that Japan is mulling a state-backed reinsurer for Middle East crude shipments, with legislation expected in the upcoming extraordinary Diet session, and set to be modelled on the 2012 law Japan enacted in response to EU sanctions on Iran. 

From the new plans, it is clear that Japan is bracing for a protracted conflict and making sure it is prepared for it.  

The last time Japan did something similar was after P&I clubs pulled cover for Iranian oil shipments after sanctions from the EU, and a similar situation is expected this time, but with graver implications. 

Several IG P&I clubs, led by Skuld and joined by others, have already issued notices of war-risk cancellation covering the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden, and Red Sea.  

The trigger was a Houthi blockade of Saudi Arabia, strikes on two tankers, and a double-tap missile attack on another vessel that killed six.  

The exclusion zone has also pushed north to Jeddah and critical Saudi crude oil export hub of Yanbu — a material escalation on anything seen from 2023 to 2025. More vessels and more voyages now sit exposed and in need of replacement cover. 

This is the second coordinated IG and reinsurer war-risk pullback in 2026 alone. 

Brokers report war-risk premiums roughly tripling in three weeks – from around 0.3% to over 1% of hull value, spiking to 3% for Saudi-linked vessels near Yemen.  

Hopes that a deal might be stitched together – that shipping could begin its slow return to normalcy – has now been put on pause.  

People moves

This has been a week of some heavy weight appointments.   

Notably, AIG appointed Lisa Sun as Hong Kong CEO and president of mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, while John Wu has been handed interim role as responsible person for AIG China. 

Allianz Trade named Scott Munafo China CEO.  

Oneglobal brought in Fabien Goutoulli as its Singapore CEO.  

In New Zealand, Marsh CEO Toni Ferrier stepped down, with Matthew Riddle stepping into that role in the interim. 

Philippines’ Nat Re has brought veteran Alexander Reyes out of retirement to take helm at the reinsurer. 

Do check out our weekly people move round-up to stay up to speed on the most important appointments in the region. 

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