Baltimore Bridge Catastrophe May Be Biggest Ever Marine Insurance Payout

The destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and its economic fall out could result in the biggest-ever marine insurance payout, the chair of insurance giant Lloyd’s of London and its chief executive both said in separate interviews on Thursday.

“We’re beginning to deploy resources in anticipation of this being a very substantial claim for the industry. And for the Lloyd’s market, it’s going to take some time for for the complexity of the situation to unravel,” Bruce Carnegie-Brown said in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe. “So, [it’s] very early days to call a number. I don’t at this point anticipate that it’s outside our realistic disaster scenario planning. It feels like a a very substantial loss, potentially the largest-ever marine insured loss, but not outside parameters that we plan for.”

“This has the potential to be one of the largest marine losses in history,” Lloyd’s chief executive John Neal said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Thursday. “It’s a multi-billion dollar loss. I think it has to be but I think it is a little too early to say what you actually think it’s going to cost.”