Machinery failure and fires are the main drivers of the recent increase in claim costs. Nordic marine insurers have reported an extraordinary increase in claims above $10m and increase in total losses on vessels with values above $10m, but also a big increase in medium-sized claims.

The Nordic Association of Marine Insurers (Cefor), a trade association for marine insurers in the Nordic countries, published its 2025 hull reports for ocean and coastal hull business based on data from the Nordic Marine Insurance Statistics database as per year-end 2025. The statistics are based on hull and machinery coverage written by Cefor members.

“2025 is the third consecutive year with elevated claims costs. Both major losses and inflation of repair costs contribute to the increased cost level. The main driver of the recent increase in claims costs are machinery failure and fires,” Cefor said in its release on Monday.

Machinery damage showed a substantial increase in recent years, which should be seen in the context of an ageing fleet, while fires continue to dominate major losses.

For smaller vessels in Nordic waters claims costs return to more average levels again after extraordinary major loss impact in the fishing vessel segment in 2024. However, the coastal segment showed a similar upward trend in machinery-related costs as observed in the ocean hull segment.

Another feature was the occurrence of claims clusters in connection with extreme weather events in Norway.

The report shows how nearly all claims cost and frequency indicators show an upward trend and relates these to the main drivers for hull claims costs.

In addition to the ocean and coastal hull reports, additional key figures are made available for ocean and coastal hull business, providing breakdowns by vessel types, age groups, size groups, insured value and other segments.

Ocean hull claim trends

Fires dominated severity: 7 of the 13 claims above $10m losses in 2025 were fires, and in six of the past ten years fires accounted for 40-70% of the costliest losses, increasingly affecting even younger vessels.

The frequency of machinery claims over $500,000 is 30% higher in the period 2022-2025 than in prior years, contributing to a 50% jump in the machinery claim cost per vessel.

Coastal hull claim trends

In 2024 and 2025, the machinery claim cost per vessel was significantly higher than in the period 2026-2023. Although machinery claim costs on fishing vessels remain lower than the overall coastal average, the frequency of such claims shows an upward trend.