Inside the Room Where War Insurance Is Bought and Sold

On any given day at Lloyd’s of London, insurance brokers mill around the 200-foot-tall atrium of the Underwriting Room, carrying documents in black folders. They are negotiating policies for ships carrying oil, gas and other goods around the world. There’s Shanghai to Los Angeles; Vancouver to Busan, South Korea; Valparaíso, Chile, to Sydney.

They are also negotiating policies for what’s become, these days, perhaps the most dangerous route in the world: the Strait of Hormuz.

It’s unclear when the approximately 1,500 ships stranded in the Persian Gulf for the last three months will be able to continue their journeys. But when there is an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which handled one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas exports before the start of the war, policies negotiated at Lloyd’s will be a crucial part of what enables trade to restart.

That coverage will come at a price.

Insurance premiums in the region are likely to stay elevated long after the United States and Iran agree to reopen the strait, according to marine insurance executives and analysts.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/business/strait-hormuz-shipping-insurance-iran.html